(Continued from Money Talks and So We Meet Again – If anything needs changing, please PM me, Mods.)
(Xavia, Jupiter, and others to come)

She was not aware of the transporting between the hotel and the camp. She was not awake, even as Jupiter held fast to her throughout the trip after he talked to her worried family. All she knew was oblivion again, the peaceful darkness she had surrendered to after they put her against her biggest weakness, her kryptonite, the snow, the cold air… Xavia did not suffer in the darkness, she did not feel the agony of her blistered face and hands…

The collar was placed around her angrily red neck, as if she really needed it by that point when she was down. One was probably placed around Jupiter’s too. Then they were thrown in the camp like two miscreants thrown into prison, like rats in a cage… If she woke up now, she would live one of her biggest fears.

It wasn’t just like a concentration camp, not like when the Jews were persecuted, but it may a well have been the same. Mutants sat huddled together, some with angry faces and some with sad faces. They were like a family, for they were there for each other in the only way they could be. All of them wore the same collar that was placed around her own neck, all of them wanted nothing more than to be free and be treated like the human beings that they were. It was a sad state of affairs that they were brought down thusly by a bunch of people who had no right to treat them this way.

All because they were different, all because they had extraordinary gifts that probably scared the living daylights out of the people who did not have these gifts. Because they had the gifts that they had, they were inferior. It wasn’t right, and it wasn’t fair at all. None of these people had done anything but try to fight for their freedom, and for that, they were no more than animals in the eyes of society.

Xavia awoke briefly, and was in a state of panic for the first moment, in so much pain as she was, and in unfamiliar territory. She was somewhat delirious as it was, that she hardly recognized Jupiter. Oh, god, it hurts, it hurts… She wanted to cry out and say so, but her throat felt so tight… The collar wasn’t choking her, but it certainly wasn’t helping the situation at all. She wished someone could take it off of her, it hurt so bad to have something so roughly pressed against her neck.

She had no choice but to force herself back into the lovely darkness that comforted her so…

Jupiter had Xavia crooked in his arm the whole time. Pressed to his chest. He had made it here before his brothers had. they were going to enter the camps willingly wouldn't they be surprised when they found him here? oh he wasn't going to hear the end of it. he was sure of it. but it didn't matter. He sat down near a group of smaller mutants they looked cold and weary. They could use a protector like him.

Eventually a guard had the Idea to not leave well enough alone and the exchange was quick. The guard barked at Jupiter to set Xavia down. Jupiter spoke quietly but firmly. "do you really want to chance the fact that this little collar doesn't have enough power to take me out? people have tried to control me with electric all my life and failed. I wear this collar because I choose to, not because you make me. push the button and you die little man. this camp will go with you. if I were you I'd run away while you can." He wasn't sure if it was the cold hatred or the factual tone in his voice that the man lived because he dined it to be. but the guard made a show of Jupiter not being worth his time and made his way across the camp.

(For the purposes of convenience, the text will not be color coded and such. This shall be a long one.)

Jupiter seemed to cradle her through the day, holding her dying form in his arms and shielding her from the toxicity of the cold. The men tried to separate him, and she could hear touches of the argument from her velvety darkness. He protected her with his life, her red monkey man. The love she felt in her heart for him made her want to fight this pain and suffering she had never asked for. Xavia trusted him more than ever, letting it fill her with silvery light.

She did not know there was another hero, fighting for her. Martin. Surely he knew she was gone by now. Just as well, she thought, she was a rookie to this game, and he knew more than she. She was only in the way. That was evident on the day that Mr. Beledodia had cupped and bruised the back of her neck. How else could she have been captured so quickly? Her stupidity was evident when she let herself use her mutation to get away from his cruel grasp. It was her own stupidity that put her lover in harms way.


Even now, the politician paced his office like a caged lion. He awaited news of the girl with fierce anticipation. His phone rang with a clamor, causing him to jump and snatch the receiver from its cradle. “Beledodia.”

“We have her right where you want her.” The voice on the other line was harsh and breathy. His best man, the one he trusted the most, and the one he trusted the least. Beledodia knew his man would get the prize. “Good. Good. Is she harmed?” Mr. B. paced the room, once more, reaching for a Cuban cigar. The large smoke was placed into his mouth, he struck the flint of his gold plated lighter, and inhaled a delicious tasting cloud.

“Her face, her skin… Something happened when the snow touched it. Why do you care about such a freak?”

“She is that, but there is something about her and…” I must have her. As he exhaled, the plume of smoke rose in curls toward the ceiling. The haze of it blurred any flaws in the paint, casting faint shadow against the stark white.

“The little freak wasn’t alone, though.”

“Of course she wasn’t. She was in the company of that snooty little twerp, the one who sat in my office like some kind of keeper. Hah.” He sat in his expensive, and cushy, leather chair. His finely clad feet are then propped up on the rich mohogony of the desk as he took another puff of his cigar.

“No, it wasn’t a little man. It was a big man. Another freak, bright as a red crayon, he’s a shaggy looking man with a… monkey’s tail. He acted like a lover scorned when we tried to take her away. Jumped out of a window way up high, he did.”

“Did the men take him to the damn camp too?” He pulled his feet from the desk and set them on the floor, grabbing the Cuban from his lips and spewing out a large cloud of furiously puffed gray, a vein sticking out in his old geezer neck.

“He went to protect her.”

“Son of a *****! You need to get her away from him. NOW. She is MINE. I’ll not let him have her. Get her away from him and bring her to me.” Mr. B. slammed his balled fist down on the hard wood, face turning a molten red, Cuban breaking in half with his fury. There was no way he was going to let some rotten freak take the object of his desire away from him when he had yet to sample her wares. The ***** wouldn’t be a problem when he got her alone, this time, she had a collar on. She was as good as his slave. He didn’t care that she was an abomination, all he knew was his lust was raging for the girl, and he had to have her.

To him, she was so beautiful, flawless; ethereal. Her skin was like honey, her eyes like molten caramel when she looked at him after she injured him. He didn’t even know her name, but he didn’t need to. His gipsy looked so helpless, so sad, so easy for him to break. It was Mr. B’s pleasure, no, honor to break her, to teach her a lesson for making him bleed. He would never surrender her to the hulking monster who went with her,

Growling, he disposed of his beloved cigar, and stood up. It was time for him to pay a visit to the camp.


Back in the camp, the people were restless. The air positively crackled with tension. Something was going to happen, they all could feel it. A few curious souls huddled around Jupiter and Xavia, some venturing to ask if they could help. The most likely answer they received was that she needed to be kept warm. Unfortunately, there was no way for them to do that except for grouping around the pair. Some of them thought that if they could help the large, red male out, he would protect them, not just her. But she seemed very important to him.

Xavia awoke a few times, her lips parched. She needed water. Not only was she thirsty, but the water helped make her stronger than normal. The snow was too cold. Her lips parted and she croaked her need out, “Th-thu… Th… Ju… Th… th… thir… Thirsty..”

If he understood and helped her, she perked up just that little bit, which was a very good sign. If he didn’t, then she would lay there in his arms, begging for water as best as she could under the circumstances.

The others started to feel anger. The poor girl looked so terrible, blisters caking her face to hide any sign of the beauty that she might be, pale as death, tortured, in pain. She was sort of an icon as to what they were going through. They started to feel uneasy, restless, as if their time was coming soon.
As if to make true to the feelings of tension worse, the guards came to do the bidding of the obsessed politician. It was a few hours after their first attempt, and they were wiser, this time, wielding heavy chains made from titanium, firearms, and tazers. They all had their eyes on the big guy. When they approached the motley group of collared mutants, some of them even gave one of those laughs that would send chills down the spines of the weak of heart.

Most of them scattered, the smaller ones anyways, but the stronger ones looked at each other and stood up straighter, eying the soldiers wearily. They would not so easily leave the pair to the evil looking pure bloods. Bastards. The guards looked at each other, too, and laughed out loud over this pitiful sign of defiance. The captain then held up his arm, halting his company, and sneered at the mutants.

With bated breath, they waited for him to speak, some cracking knuckles, some shuffling their feet restlessly. The guards, however, all mimicked their captain and sneered, most of them patting their palms with their weapons of choice as they did the bidding of their leader. The captain gave a rumbling chuckle, deep in his chest, before he started to circle around the group.

“What is this? Can we not pay the girl a visit without a vigilante ever by her side? And now… Hah… She has a gaggle of pitiful followers kissing her toes.” He spat toward the prostrate Xavia, the saliva landing ever so close to her. “You might as well surrender any thought you may have of defending her. Just as you all are, she is a freak. A nobody. Your blood is tainted and you are a burden to society. Why don’t you all just do us a favor and die? Save us the trouble of looking at you.” His ugly laugh grew louder, and he got into the face of one, unflinching mutant. “You reek of taint. The stench of it fills my nostrils and disgusts me. Do you really wish to suffer for one girl?” His chiseled face went into the cragged one of the mutant he taunted. A fine boned, blunt ended finger jabbed out into the broad chest of that one, sending a harder than necessary blow to the pectoral that would surely bruise even the well honed muscle of that one. When the mutant stood his ground, the only indication of his anger rising being the slight narrowing of his eyes, and the tightening of his meaty fists, the captain gestured toward the group of guards, and they all moved to close into a circle around the group. “Grab the girl,” he said to the men, turning his face only slightly to indicate whom he spoke to, and then looked back at the mutant who’s face he was in. Of course Jupiter wouldn’t have that at all, he was probably going to be the first to defend Xavia. The guards were prepared for that, and closed in.

The other mutants could hear a growl coming from the hulking red one, and took it as time to leap into action. This day would be known as the uprising of that camp, for the actions of a few turned into the actions of many. The front runner of this group was Jupiter, and more men surrounded him than they did the others. Several more guards came rushing in, sirens filled the air as the sound of battle ragged rampantly throughout the camp. Only the weak stayed back, they had no chance. It would take several hours of fighting before the guards got what they wanted, and dragged the prone woman from the field of battered mutants. The captain ordered them to not be killed, to suffer from the injuries, so there were few deaths, if at all. Some leapt back when shocked by the collars, some fought through the agony of the shocking, one fought through it all until he was overcome and even he could not save Xavia. And then she was gone, carried like a sack of potatoes to who knows where?


Beledodia watched from a window in a room on the top floor of the building the freaks would be crammed into for sleep, torture, and what little food was probably thrown at them. He couldn’t be more pleased with the violence that had erupted. Dance, monkey, dance, he thought. It was as if he wound up one of those stupid, cymbal playing monkeys that clapped the tiny little cymbals together repetitively and stomped their faux-fur covered feet, not quite to the beat.

Hundreds of them lay in heaps, most injured, some dead, few taking cover like the cowardly dogs that they were. Glee was the word that came to mind when he looked down at those pitiful excuses for human beings. HAH, poster children for suffering, indeed. Pshaw.

His pig-like eyes lit up at the sight of his prize being carried off the field while the big, angry red fellow got his arse thoroughly pwned by a chunk of the guard populace. Cruel, he thought, yet utterly delicious. The big oaf didn’t deserve a delicate flower like the one he, himself craved. Tainted blood or no, when Beledodia wanted something, he got it, and damn the consequences.

Not long after he watched the girl being carted from the beaten crowd, the door burst open, and the guard brought her in. It was the captain himself who brought his quarry. The handsome fellow caused a stirring of envy, he looked like a modern day Viking, smooth shaven of course, capturing a slave. Mr. B’s jaw ticked a few times when the man took too long to hand her over.

“Well? Put her down, idiot!” And when the captain swung her about like a ragdoll, Beledodia nearly knocked the fool in the noggin, and his voice went high pitched in a hurry. “Gently, now, or I will have you locked up and tortured with the rest of those dogs you just disciplined.”

“Whatever you say, Sir” The Norse looking fellow rolled his eyes in disgust, and gingerly placed the half-dead being on the floor, before giving a mocking bow to the snake like Beledodia, who was now wiggling his fingers together in excitement. Glee!

~~“Th-thu… Th… Ju… Th… th… thir… Thirsty..”

“I’ll do what I can my love.” It took time but the others were becoming more and more use full and like a pariah others with coming together, they did it discreetly but the others shared their daily ration of not enough water with Dryad.

**“What is this? Can we not pay the girl a visit without a vigilante ever by her side? And now… Hah… She has a gaggle of pitiful followers kissing her toes.” You might as well surrender any thought you may have of defending her. Just as you all are, she is a freak. A nobody. Your blood is tainted and you are a burden to society. Why don’t you all just do us a favor and die? Save us the trouble of looking at you.” “You reek of taint. The stench of it fills my nostrils and disgusts me. Do you really wish to suffer for one girl?”

He didn’t bother saying it out loud he merely made a promise to the man his life was forfeit and by his hand.

**“Grab the girl,”

“I am sorry love.” He said as he set the woman on the ground and planted his feet to either side of her, his tail twitching about behind him. The first attack was to laying in to his shock collar and so his first response to rip it from his neck. He tossed it at the groups feet. And his chest finally let out a rumble that soon turned into a roar. Tazers, knives chains and whips and finally hand guns. They were weak from ill treatment, on a well feed day these bastards wouldn’t have had a chance as it was there were still bits of guard under his nails. They sent too many, how they paid them enough he didn’t know, the hatred was real here though. The struggle for the world alive. Someone would taze him and receive a broken limb, someone would stab him and receive a broken face, it was when they pulled their guns and abandoned the pretense of leaving Jupiter alive that he had truly fallen, bullets hurt, they hurt bad. Oh he could stop a bullet with his muscle before it got to anything important but he’d pay for carrying all that lead in him, they kept firing and firing and he began to stumble and began to reel the sheer loss of blood from him was ridiculous. His eyes blurred and even as the mean shot him. he grinned. “the camps end is near, red liberty isn’t one man, he is seven.” He fell to the ground and his eyes began to fall shut they focused on a small silhouette looking down on them.

The men above him were giddy with facing the beast and living, not everyone could claim such a thing. They discussed how rounds they emptied into him. and the fact that his chest still labored and his heart still beat. The shackled him in titanium and quartered him for the rest to see.