Recent Posts

There was just something satisfying about having a conversation in a tree. Skydancer had spent so much time lamenting her lost dreams that she hadn't properly realized just how much she had gained in exchange. Maybe some doors had closed on her life, but she was just starting to realize that maybe, just maybe, more doors had opened for her than had closed. The price was far too great, with the loss of her brother, but maybe it was time taht she move on and actually do something with the gifts she had been given.

"I've never had the time to really dedicate myself to school," Skydancer answered. It wasn't that she was a bad student, but her energy was always firmly upon her competitions and school took a backseat to that. "I always figured at some time I'd go to college or something, but I don't really know anymore." She shrugged. It was one thing to realize she had options available to her and quite another to know which options were worth pursuing. Her life had been laid out for her before, now it was wide open and that was more than a little scary.

"As many gymnastics competitions as I could," Skydancer agreed. "And I was good, really good. If not for this," she gestured towards her purple skin and tubes, "I'm sure I would have made it to the Olympics. It would have been this year, you know. I was so close I could taste it, just a matter of getting through the trials and actually arriving. But I guess that's changed now." She tried not to let her disappointment show in her voice. "It's hard when something you've worked for your entire life is taken away from you."

"How do you feel about becoming more reptillian?" Skydancer asked, genuinely curious. Hearing the stories of other mutants, especially those who stood out like her, made her feel better about her own situation which wasn't so bad as she first thought. "I think I can find something to blend in, at least for sometimes. I don't want to be ashamed of what I am, but...sometimes I just don't want that kind of attention." It wasn't quite about being normal, she was almost an Olympic athlete and normal isn't something she ever wanted to be. But sometimes illusions were nice.

Skydancer's kind of Chibi at the moment, but most certainly willing to do something with Chase. I believe it was mentioned that he was investigating the Chibi phenomenon?

The lead cultist, intent upon his victim, ignored the chaos around him for the time being. His ball of energy, unknown to those around him, hadn't killed his victim but merely rendered her instantly unconscious. It was a simple thing, after that, to open the cage door and stab is dagger directly into her chest, chanting the proper ceremonial words as he did so. M was the medium his god uitilized in order to grant his divine gifts. They were imperfect vessels and as imperfect vessels, M took its tool on each of their lives, shortening them little by little, aging them faster than they otherwise should age. He knew the key however and that was to find the perfect sacrifises, to please their god so that he would grant them their proper life to go along with their divine gifts and each soul he brought to his god brought him closer to that goal. The poor little electric girl was only one among many and no interfering mutants would stop his plans, not after he had worked so long on them.

Skydancer watched everything from her glass cage and what she saw both horrified and sickened her. Humans, M users and non-users alike, battling mutants and everywhere she turned, people killing and dying horribly. She saw as the cultist murdered her fellow captive and saw his eyes turn upon her, as if she was his intended next victim. The way the two mutants fought to defend Skydancer and the other captives was at once both horrifying in its grace and lethality and also strangely beautiful.

When the burning tar-like material struck Skydancer's cage, she didn't need an invitation to renew her efforts to escape. She slammed several tubes into the glass and saw a hairline crack appear. Two more collision of similar force and the glass finally shattered, allowing her freedom once again. In that moment, however, freedom seemed far more dangerous than the relative safety her glass cage had offered her.

Once free, Skydancer's first priority was to allow the bird mutant boy his freedom as well. The other two seemed too preoccupied with their own problems to be of much help at that moment but they also seemed competent enough to take care of themselves. The sprinklers went on due to an out of control man with a problem setting everything he touched on fire, but she ignored it. What she didn't ignore was a familair white energy ball coming from the cult leader and a dextrous dive to the side and a roll on the ground allowed her to avoid it, if only just barely. A moment later she was back on her feet, a tube shooting towards him. Her enemy, unfortunately for him, was not nearly so adept at dodging and it was a simple thing to wrap a single tube tightly around his neck, strangling him to unconsciousness. Hopefully unconsciousness, because even in the present situation she wasn't sure she could justify the morality of murder; that would be stooping to their level and she hated to even consider it.

Once the immediate threat of the cult leader was taken care of, Skydancer turned her attention on the cage with the feathery mutant, who was present cowering in the corner. Two tubes shot out and wrapped themselves around two bars set next to one another on the cage. With a grunt of effort and pain, she managed to bend them apart, just enough for the mutant boy to get free.

Since being taken off of the streets and coming to The Mansion, Skydancer had become more comfortable with being a mutant and even more comfortable with the fact that she was the sort of mutant that stuck out in a crowd. It was something she never thought would happen, not after her dreams of becoming an Olympic gymnast were dashed nor after her brother got brutally murdered simply because he had a mutant sister who couldn't save him. Meeting other visible mutants helped, however, to give her perspective and the simple act of realizing that she could wear a wig and that would go half way towards blending in helped more than she could have thought possible. In thinking back on her year of misery on the streets, she realized it was her depression that had stopped her from making such a simple jump in logic before; she hadn't wanted to fit in because, in a way, she had wanted to remain miserable. After the death of her brother, she deserved to remain miserable because she had failed so horribly. Now, however, she was beginning to realize that maybe, just maybe, it wasn't her fault and she could begin to live again and embrace her life as it was now rather than constantly wishing for her life as it was then would come back. Because she would never get her previous life back, but that didn't mean she had to give into despair.

Skydancer had always been fond of high up places and her mutation made her even more comfortable at great heights. It was stunningly easy for her to scale a 3 story building simply by finding an appropriate object to wrap her tubes around and lift her body up. For that matter, it wasn't so hard to scale higher buildings as well, provided there were things she could grip onto. High rise apartments, she found, were often great for that because some of them had balconies with bars on them and she could simply wrap her tubes around the bars, going higher and higher until the reached the ceiling of the building. Fire escapes were just as good although she didn't really use them as actual ladders so much anymore. Sometimes she would simply lift herself up, but it was the most fun when she had room to swing and really allow her momentum to propel her to higher and higher heights. Then there was the thrill at the end in releasing one tube only to catch onto her next hold with another one. It was an amazing experience that she never would have gotten as a human.

Night time was usually best, not because Skydancer had any special affinity for night, but simply because people were less likely to notice a weird purple girl swinging dozens of feet above the ground at night. It was something of a disappointment, actually, as she would have very much loved to be able to play during the daylight, but it just didn't seem safe in the middle of a city. Maybe one day she'd have to go on a camping trip and have her fun in the privacy of the woods, but she had no idea when or even if that day would come.

Still beaming from the adrenaline her exercise had produced, Skydancer eventually made her way back to the ground, employing much the same technique as had got her so high up to begin with. It was a little easier going down than coming up, though not nearly so fun. Not paying nearly as much attention as she probably should have been, she didn't immediately notice the man with the gun pointed in her direction. He was haggard in appearance and shaking slightly, though his gun remained pointed firmly in Skydancer's direction, just out of range of her tubes. "Mutant, you're going to take me to the M or you're going to regret it."

It always gave Skydancer a sense of relief when people she met for the first time didn't' react negatively to her appearance. Of course, Mr.Holloway did work at The Mansion so he was probably used to odd looking mutants by now. Not only that, but she was becoming more aware of the fact that, as odd as a hairless purple skinned girl was, she was far from the strangest looking mutant around. Reptile mutants seemed especially common, for some strange reason.

"Thank you for being willing to help me." Skydancer took his directions and sat down, playing with her hands nervously. Until proven otherwise, there was the distinct possibility that she was just getting her hopes up for nothing and no matter what she did she wouldn't' be able to hide her mutation and she wasn't at all certain she could deal with that.

"I have an idea if you're willing to be patient. In the meantime, how did you come across good ol' Xavier's?"

"Saph found me. I was, uh, living on the streets at the time. He said I could come here." It was not her proudest moment and her sense of shame showed in her voice. It was hard to admit to being homeless, even if it seemed something of a common story for mutants.

Skydancer took a deep breath and walked in. It shouldn't be anything to be worried about, not really. He was an art teacher, after all, and art teachers were almost always some of the nicest teachers around. But this was her skin she was thinking about and her ability to blend in with the human race might just depend upon this very conversation and that was some heavy stuff to think about.

"Hello Mr. Holloway." Teachers liked respect and Skydancer had always been a good student, even if her dedication had been so firmly on her gymnastics dreams that she hadn't really dedicated herself enough to her studies to really stand out academically. "My name is Skydancer or, um, Devyn if you prefer." She stumbled over her human name just slightly, having not had reason to use it in the last year. But this was a teacher, a professional and somehow her mutant name didn't quite seem appropriate. It was more casual than she thought a teacher would really appreciate.

"You don't really know me because I haven't been here long and, um, I'm not really a student at all but I was hoping I could get your help on something." Another deep breath and she went for it. "You see, I kind of have a problem. That is, I'm kind of purple. And I don't want to be. Or at least sometimes I don't want to be. So I thought, maybe, there might be some kind of body paint or something I could use. You know, to not be purple sometimes." Well now, didn't that just sound like pretty much the most ridiculous thing ever.

“I’m Gina, I’ve always been different.”

Well that was interesting. Did mutants work like that? Born different? Her sister hadn't gotten powers until just recently and her aunt told her she didn't get powers either until she turned 14; it was something of a favourite story of hers. But if humans could suddenly become mutants overnight like Devyn had, she figured it would probably be possible for them to be born mutants too.

“W-what if the only adults here are the ones that kidnapped us?”

Devyn frowned, mentally berating herself for her own stupidity. Of course the humans here must have kidnapped them, how else could they have both ended up here? And in clothes that were too big, just to make things even stranger. "Ya, I guess you're right." Once again she had to fight down a feeling of panick. But no, she was the responsible one, the future Olympian. She would figure this all out and fix it. Somehow.

"STOP you evil fiend! Its not good to eat purple people!"

Devyn stared in confusion as a third girl in a dress came skittering in and, apparently, assumed that Gina was trying to eat her. Or something. That misconception proved very much false as Gina ran and hid behind her, of all things, and started yelling challenges of her own at the long haired newcomer.

"No one is eating anyone and no one is going schoolyard on anyone!" Whatever that meant, anyway. Devyn's voice was loid and obviously irritated. "Now, explain yourself Princess." She put her hands on her hips and glared at the brown haired girl in front of her. The effect might have been more intimidating if not for the oversized bathrobe she was currently wearing and the weird purple tubes attached to her torso that were twitching in response to her own irritation. She tried to ignore them all.