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It's afternoon, and Mutant Town is strangely quiet. Of course, yesterday the massacre happened— and today more then a few mutants are out and about in positions that are quite obviously alert and defensive. The community isn't about to stand around and let the Friends of Humanity wipe them out: not today, at least. Then again, there might actually be slightly more of a police presence then usual. Of course, that largely means a squad car drives by every so often and doesn't pay a lot of attention. But its more attention then they usually pay.
There's a line at an alley, though its down to just a few people now. They are bandaged and wounded, and look the worse for wear, but there is a certain patience in them. Each carries something: a cup, a paper bag, some a tupperware dish. It's an oddity for sure. A boy with limps into the alley and is gone for a time, and there's some golden light— and after a couple minutes the boy runs out, laughs, and runs home.
Josh emerges from the alley, in a yellow hoodie that stands out, but the hood is up and he's hunched over, leaning heavily against a wall, breathing heavy. He nurses a large drink of some kind, and is eating what looks like a homemade sandwich. The people in the line look at him eagerly, but he lifts a gloved hand with some weariness, "I need some time."
*
There's a heavy THRUMMMM in the world of Mutant Town. Some people might point out to Josh that there's some strange person here, or at the very least disruptive. Such might just be paranoia, since at the moment it's merely a car driving around. The engine is far too loud for the speed it's going, slightly beyond the limit. Yet it's a sleek, crimson 1963 Jaguar XKE. The top is down, and a young man with slicked black hair is driving with one hand, other resting along the side of the outer door. He's wearing glasses despite the darkness, headlights blazing. The flashes of light did catch his attention, and he slows down to begin idling by as Josh surfaces for some much needed rest. "…hey." he states, in a bluntly neutral tone. All signs point to some mutant hating rich person, who might have wandered down to throw beer bottles and support the massacre. Probably been more than a few of those.
*
Lifting his head, Josh stares at the stranger — and as the sunlight hits his chin it becomes obvious he's not just some guy, for his chin is gold. Not tanned, not orange, but gold like the precious metal polished into a pristine state. He was keeping his head down for a reason. Yet, there's a moment in which he frowns, and he decides: screw it. He pushes his hoodie back, and tugs one glove off and then the other. The Golden Boy, indeed, though despite the metallic sheen of his skin it looks and moves like skin. "If you're here to cause trouble, let me tell you that my people have had well enough of it and our patience is thin. If you're here in peace… Welcome to the enclave." Still, he looks over the stranger with a certain curiosity.
*
Eyebrows raise, which indicates that Julian did manage to see something. He lets out a low whistle towards that, before suddenly flicking off his car. "Right on." He then hauls upwards, whisking through the air and landing lightly opposite the door. "I'm just peacing it up, golden bro! I'm one of you!" He waggles his fingers, and green energy crackles like lightning for a few moments. "Recently found out I was gifted. Yeah. That's the positive buzzword, isn't it? WHOO!" He claps his hands together heartily at that, grinning to each and every person present. "Nice to meet you all! Thought I'd see my people. Damn shame what went down… wouldn't have happened if I had been nearby, that's for damn sure!"
*
Josh's expression turns grim, finishing off both his drink and sandwich before dropping them into the trash, "And had I been around, I could have saved them." He sounds… guilty. As if he truly blames himself for not eing here in the middle of a massacre. Still, he walks to the head of the line and offers a quick smile to the old man whose arm is in a sling and bandaged at that, "Well, then. Welcome to the enclave all the more. Gifted?" He purses his lips, "I'm not sure most of our people think that, though they should. We are the future, after all. The bible says the meek shall inherit the earth, but that turns out to be bullshit: as always, the powerful will inherit the earth. Why am I not surprised? That's just how things work. I'm Josh." He reaches his hands up to the old man, reaches out and grasps his shoulders. The Golden Bro glows with a golden light, and that light spreads out over the man— moments pass into seconds and seconds into nearly a minute, and he's stumbling, reaching out to grasp the wall as the glow goes away. He reaches for the coffee the old man brought him, mumbles something even as said old man starts unbandaging and moving his arm, thanking him, then moving off. Apparently they heard he isn't in to long gushing displays of appreciation. "That was Old Henry. You'll never get what his mutation is. He can tell you the precise composition of anything he tastes and exactly how to reproduce it. Dangerous, scary, isn't it? Must fear and kill the likes of him."
*
"Man, don't beat yourself up. Save them how, offering them your golden ass if they stop attacking?" He walks closer to Josh, hands on his hips and glancing over to those present. "You know, I've given this a lot of thought. I think there's two types. Mutants. Those who get shit out of the deal. Itchy scales, a tail, coughing up bad-smelling gas. And the gifted." He thumps his thumb to his chest at that, dazzling smile. "Those who become far greater than human as a result." The entire healing aspect is eyeballed, with Julian growing progressive impressed. "Holy shit. …I'm Julian. But, holy shit. Did you just heal that guy?" He then slips closer, and taps his back. "I pulled a muscle the other day, it won't go away. Can you fix something like that?" …he's not lying, if Josh cared enough to check. Although his statement doesn't seem to be entirely dismissive. "Jeez, man. You could make a FORTUNE. Nobody on this planet'd care you are a mutant, if you saved lives like that in some upper-scale hospital, right?!"
*
Josh squints at the man a moment, tilting his head to the side, "Hey, I happen to nkow some of those people who got are in the bad side of the deal. Look, they're still our people. When it comes down to it, the baselines will not look at us and them and see any difference— we're all freaks, we are unforgivably different and more importantly we're powerful in a way they never can. That said, its a very rare mutant I've found who didn't have some *positive* to go along with the negative. Its usually a question of learning control and figuring out how to work it." That said, he reaches out to lay a hand against Julian's chest, and the golden light shines around him and spreads into him, and if there is any injury, its gone in moments. Grimly though, he shakes his head, "That's the thing. Yes, I'm a healer. But I was a Doctor. A trained surgeon— a prodigy. First in my class in every class I ever had. I published work. I was board certified in general surgery, on track to be chief resident. Best hospital in the city. Then one day I healed someone, turned gold— and got fired, had my family disown me, my friends wouldn't talk to me. Oh yeah. They care. Oh, don't get me wrong, six months, a year later, some of those people came to me seeking help despite the fact that I moved from a nice Manhatten studio into a hovel the size of my old closet." He snorts, and laughs a moment later, "I know a lot of mutants whose powers would be beneficial to humankind and got prejudice instead. Believe me, we'd rather this war not exist. We'd love to just live our lives, use our gifts. The Friends of Humanity only care about the fact that we're no longer 'them'. They're just the beginning."
*
A low whistle comes from Julian as he states that, looking just a touch smug. "C'mon, you don't gotta pour on the rhetoric quite that heavily. Listen, powered people ain't unique to the world and all that. They never got… got hated like mutants. It's that there's so MANY of them all of the sudden that's the problem, right? Betcha it was them nuclear bombs we done dropped on the Japs." Although the sudden loss of his minor pain makes Julian grunt in relief, rolling his shoulder. "THANKS, man, that was SO annoying." …stated in front of many badly wounded people far worse suffering. "…" Somehow, that doesn't seem to be the story that Julian expected to here. "That's bullshit." he suddenly exclaims. "You were a doctor saving lives all your life, and a fucking hero. And you get GOD HIMSELF descending to touch you, and say 'your miracles are not enough', and what do they do? Fucking Judas you on the cross." Julian spits to the side, disgusted. "You're a bigger man than me, I bet. I wager you enjoyed telling them to go flip themselves when they came begging."
*
"That's one theory." agrees Josh readily enough, "That the nuclear testing and the bombs thing. Who knows? But its not that power is new— and its not that there's a lot of us. It's that we make them obsolete. We don't need them, and the Mutant Towns are the beginning of what will turn into camps. First Sacramento, now here. If those who don't show think they can have gifts and just blend, well, all power to them if that's what they want. But me… I want to use my gifts." He has to grin at the appreciation, and when Julian seems outraged on his behalf, he gives a curt nod, his golden expression hardening, "It is what it is. The one thing they left me with was my student loans: those they don't write off." He rolls his eyes, "But it wasn't the end of life. Still, though, I met some people. Friends. They watch my back. Hell, they offered to pay my loans and get me out of debt, but fuck me if I'm not going to recognize the baseline's world and authority over me if I'm not a full citizen. That's when I decided I'm not a victim, they might have Judas'd me on the cross, but fuck them too. They turned their back on me, so that's fine. I'm not one of them. I don't owe them anything: not loyalty, not obedience, nothing. I'm free. And every day I'm a little more powerful." He gestures to the direction Old Henry went, "That's nothing. I can heal the dead, now. You get your throat cut and bleed out and if I find you while you're still warm, you're not dead anymore. And I'm only at the beginning. That's what we're about." He doesn't say who 'we' are. "Protecting our own, growing together, learning how to be the best we can be, and standing firm, united, and *strong*."
*
"If that's the guess, bet those damn Japanese gotta be harboring a whole buncha mutants under people's noses." glowers Julian, scratching beneath his chin. The younger man continues to listen, arms crossing as he backs up and leans against the rear of his car. "Ain't a whole lot of shame in healing people who need it. Not everyone can be like me." He presses fingers to his forehead, another green crackle before he salutes with a crack, dull feeling like ozone surrounding for just a moment. "But freedom…? Hell. I got it already. My parents don't give a shit about what I am. Just want it outta public eye, of course. Can't blame them. But so what if people know? You're right. I'm the goddamn /future/, and I'm not ashamed of it. Just like you, I was already blessed from birthright, and this only made it better. I ain't got my legs kicked out from under me yet, though… here's hoping, hahaha!"
*
"There are more and less fun ways to have your legs kicked out from under you." remarks Josh with a wry grin, "Anyways, beisdes Josh, I'm also known as Elixir. You know: I'm the cure for what ailes you." He shrugs and lifts a hand to run through his blond hair, "You're lucky, and there's nothing wrong with that, but keeping out of the public eye… that's harder then it might seem. Always worrying, always wondering. Accepting them, those baselines, get to define for you what you do with your life. I don't know your gift, but if you want to use it, who are they to judge? The apes did not get to keep ruling the world when humans learned to use tools, and I'm sorry for them but the humans don't get to keep being in charge when we have power." He lifts a hand, stretching golden fingers, and that golden glow seeps out of his skin, "Its not just healing, its biokinetic control. I'll never age, you know. I know what aging feels like: the slow degredation, and I simply will it to reverse itself. In my body its almost automatic, in someon elses? Its easier then healing a broken bone. The world is mine and yours and ours. That is, unless they find a weapon or beat us by sheer numbers, for as many as we seem to be more common then before, its stil thousands of them to each of us. If not more."
"The Brotherhood are what stands between the apes and evolution, with hands held forward to say: no more and never again. The Brotherhood won'nt go silent into oblivion as the baselines protect their power at our expense."
*
"Really? A codename? Huh. That's cool." Julian comments, looking thoughtful for a few moments. "I think… yeah. I'll be Hellion. Since I've always been wild, and when I enter a scene, all hell breaks loose, right? Hah!" All white teeth bared towards Josh. But then he looks left and right, mouth locked in a silent expression. "You mean… you can make people immortal?" He whispers the latter, disbelieving. "That's… how long does it last on someone else? Holy shit… they would lock you in a TANK to get that out of you, man. You gotta be careful!" Brotherhood, though. That's a new name to him. "Oh, yeah…? So… you guys are like, vigilante types. Hoping to protect against jackasses like Friends of Humanity, and stuff?"
*
Josh pauses, giving it some thought, "I can't permanently arrest aging— at least, not yet— but I can repair damage aging does. Its not true immortality, just longevity. But no one can lock me in a tank: the true secret of being a healer is its far easier to do damage then it is to heal. If someone tried to force anything out of me, a single thought would be all it would take for me to kill every cell in my body." He sounds…chipper about that. Like. Screw you, powers that be. But he nods, "We like to think of it less then a code name then not a slave name. But the Brotherhood of Mutants don't think of themselves as vigilantes, as freedom fighters. We didn't start this war: they did. They burned Sacramento to the ground. They executed sixty of our people yesterday. The Brotherhood does not recognize the authority of any human government because we do not consider ourselves humans: the age of homo sapient is over, homo superior's age is dawning. Among our membership are some of our most powerful and we grow every day. Yes, we will do all we can to protect our people from the death squads that come from us. And then we will seek them out and take the war to them. We did not want a war, we did not start this war, but compared to them we are gods. I know a man who can duplicate himself— and duplicate himself— he is in one man an entire army. What can you do, Hellion?"
*
A low whistle builds up in Julian at that. "Damn." seems to be all he has to say. He had thought himself to hold a potent power, but it seems like the higher echelons of the lottery are well beyond his immediate expectations. Somewhat deflating, but at least Josh can't hurl a car at people with his mind. Give and take, right? "Slave name…?" That phrase seems to not quite resonate with the youth like the rest of the rhetoric. "Whoa… whoa, whoa. Calm down…" Hands raise up in a halting manner, trying to absorb all this. "You're making yourself sound like a bunch of terrorists. I understand things are lame, but like… black people couldn't get a break either, and that was before all this shit went down. Society takes time, right? Uhhh… like. Slavery went away, since society progressed enough to be like… we're all one race. You don't think… think mutant stuff's gonna turn out like that?" He scratches the side of his face. "My best friend's got no powers, and he thinks what I do is radical as hell. What about him? You saying he's like… not worth nothing to you?"
*
"Sixty people." Josh points just down the street, "Men. Women. Old men. Old women. The Friends of Humanity lined them there, put them to their knees, and held a gun to their head— and fired, one after another. Sixty people. Think of that a moment. How long it takes to point a bullet at a child's head and pull the trigger, and how long it will take to clean the blood from the concrete. And we got off easy. Sacramento had far fewer survivors. Terrorists? They are the terrorists. We fight for freedom." He gestures off to the rest of the city, "Your best friend, I mean him no harm. Yes, the age of man is over, but evolution will answer that. I don't to kill anyone — least of all those who are not trying to kill me and mine. After all, we come from them. If your friend will not raise arms against us, he can live out his life. Find a nice girl to marry. Have a child. And maybe that child will be one of us. Or, maybe her child will be one of us. Those that do not threaten us can live their lives." He shakes his head firmly though, "Slavery went away, but the slaves didn't pose an existential threat to the status quo. Slavery was a moral failing, a reprehensible moral failing, and one that continues to this day: if you think that we're all one race… friend, you are looking at the world through rosy glasses. The negro are persecuted and abused and they struggle for basic freedoms, and they are merely *men*, whose only real difference is the color of their skin." He gestures to his own golden skin, "They don't have the power to lay hands upon a man and kill— or heal— him with a thought. Do you think society will ever allow someone with my power to be free? Truly. Take a moment to consider it, because I am not the most powerful of us."
*
"I…" Honestly, Julian doesn't want to think about that. To him the tragedy was nothing more than a statistic. Attempting to put a more meaningful face on it gives him the chills in a way he doesn't care for. Looks like he has no meaningful response to any of that, staring down at his kickin' shoes fresh off the most expensive shelf in the mall. The world he's found himself in is seeming a bit less wild and exciting now that he's talked with the more jaded Elixir. "I understand taking care of people like the Friends of Humanity. Hell, I'd help with that. …but I don't think there's a war. Not yet. And I'd prefer there isn't one. …yeesh. This is a lot to take in." He seems rather more muddled than when he started, curious to see others of his 'kind', more ambivalent to the horrors they just suffered through…
*
"They started the war. They killed hundreds of us in Sacramento. Sixty here. The government does nothing." Josh's voice is intent but soft, "Look at me: I have the power to heal. Do you think I want to do anything else? There is nothing more gratifying then to heal. To see a broken child and make her whole. To see an old man near his deathbed and breathe new life into him so he can see his grandchild born again. It is exhausting, painful, if I press to hard I go into a coma and wake up days later, but I never stop. But there is a war, Julian. They started it. You can choose not to be part of it: that is your right. It won't be your fault when the next sixty people die. I don't mean that as backhanded: it really won't be your fault. You have no obligation to fight, to stand between your people and those trying to hurt them. You are free. We are free. I, though, … I don't agree with every decision Mystique makes, but I know I can't live with myself if I don't step up to fight." He wrinkles his nose, "What annoys me most of all is I had a chance— but didn't go— to Kennedy's parade in Texas. Had I been there, had I laid golden hands on him and healed him after they shot him in the head… I could have changed everything for us. And if I can find any way to do that, I'll do it. Just because I acknowledge there is a war, doesn't mean I won't jump at any chance to end it peacefully if I can."
*
"…" Julian is hanging his head down, not able to look Josh in the eye. Mystique is a name he doesn't know, nor is it one he has any idea if it should mean something. Fingers curl and relax, slowly licking his lips. "I understand." he finally murmurs. "Why you are this way. …I imagine all your friends in, in the Brotherhood are the same." He stands upright then, looking towards Elixir seriously. "But I just started my own journey as a Mutant. I need to experience it for myself. I'm not ready to throw everything away for a war until I see the way things really are with my own two eyes. Maybe you're right. I hope you aren't, but maybe… and if you are, you better believe I'll be on the front lines with you." He shifts to hop over the side of his car door and thump back down in the driver's seat.
*
"And if you need anything— ever— come to the Eight Ball here, and ask for Elixir. If you're in trouble, ever, tell them you need the black Elixir. The Brotherhood will stand for its people. But we are all on our own paths. You will live your life. And I wish you the best, Julian." With that said, Josh rubs at his face, rolls his shoulders, and with a bone-weary sigh waves to the first of the last two in the line, and heads to the alley where he has a rickity chair that nonetheless eases the burden. "I might be able to get you both." he says to the last two of the wounded, "But if not, run to the clinic and they'll come get me, then you'll be the first I get to when I am able."