A flyer arrived early in the morning. It was advertising a new self help centre called Spiritual Balance. While it was a well made flyer advertising meditation, tai chi and kung fu it was the man running the place that would grab people’s attention. Hunter Antonescu. He had returned to New York after over a year away.

(OOC: Here’s the thread for Spiritual Balance, any and all are welcome)

This was a joke. That was the first thought that came to mind when he saw the flier. It was funny—just look at it. Tai chi. Meditation. Spiritual Balance. Hunter Antonescu. It was funny. It was funny, wasn’t it?

Hunter Antonescu had threatened to kill him. Explicitly, a few times; implied, for every waking and sleeping moment during the rest of the year he’d served the man.
Hunter Antonescu had beaten him.
Hunter Antonescu had tortured him.
Hunter Antonescu was a large part of who he was today, and a large part of what he loathed in himself.

That’s why this flier was funny. It really was. This was a joke, of the cosmic sort—some other man, wearing the same name. Ha.

The last time Calley had seen Hunter Antonescu, the immortal had been a bleeding pulp on the concrete grounds of Mondragon Labs. Calley had done that. Not Abyss, who’d offered to, or the X-Men, who might have if they’d known what Calley had known; he had done it. He, Caleb Swartz, at eighteen years old, after a year of being a Kabal member under the man’s leadership.

He was twenty now. Baby blue eyes appraised the poster with mirth, the lips below them quirking in the habitual smile he’d picked up while under the man’s tender loving care. The lanky young man reached up a hand and slowly tore the flier from the bulletin board. Unreadable strips were left behind, hanging from their tacks like flayed skin. He didn’t know how long the flier had been up. It came down at 2:30 PM, Friday, May 21st, 2010. No one who saw the young man methodically tearing the paper into shreds over the trash can questioned him about it. It was that kind of smile.

At 4:01 PM, Friday, May 21st, 2010, a panther mutant walked through the doors of Spiritual Balance. Rich black fur covered every inch of skin exposed by his loose half-length pants and lavender vest, and every inch hidden, as well. A pair of square-rimmed glasses were perched above a broad nose on a distinctly feline face. Round ears and short whiskers twitched affably at the secretary as he entered, his bare hind paws naturally quiet over the floors.

“Hello, Miss. I hear you teach mediation. Would it be possible for me to meet with the instructor prior to signing up for sessions?” His thick tail swished behind his legs. “Who a man is really makes things. You understand.”

The panther man pushed his glasses just a smidge higher with a stub-fingered hand. A friendly smile quirked on his lips, flashing sharp white teeth.

This was either a joke, or a dead man.

((ooc: Continued in Old Friends.))