telepathic voice in your head;

[radiopalkiller]

[ Philip sits at his desk. He briefly considers setting the scene, tidying up the stack of papers, or-- What's the point? It's his office. Nobody is going to see him. But all of Genosha is about to hear him.

He clears his throat.

And rolls his eyes at the private joke, because even like that it's getting old. ]

Due to the series of recent events I'm forced to remind all fellow mutants to travel carefully, especially near the Ridgeback Mountains region. Do not travel alone. Do not underestimate what their misguided rebellion is capable of. And remember to listen to Her Majesty's daily broadcast for further updates and information.

Long live the Queen.

[ Because he sure as bloody hell isn't going to bother reaching out like this again anytime soon. He doesn't add as much, though. Instead Philip presses a tissue to his nose, and catches the blood. Shuffles around some papers, and takes the opportunity to pause, anyway, because when his mind reaches across the island again the message plays a different tune: ]

To all homo sapiens: Our world does not need to be like this. Why try to anchor us in the past, when you could be part of our future? We are offering our help to you. If you would like to accept it, report to the science faculty at Magda University to participate in our Human Evolutionary Advancement Research Trials. Don't let the coming days be your end. Let them be a new beginning for all of us.

Never forget this: You have a chance to decide your own fate, before it gets decided for you.

[ He combs through his notes. Nope, that's that taken care of. Jesus Christ, he'll need a stiff drink now. He fumbles for a bottle in his drawer, and the phone on his desk. ]

Private Text to Ford Pines
Since as usual none of what I'm saying gets through to your tin brain, get your bloody arse over here and give me a status report on the experiments.

[[ OOC: Plotting comment is here, my contact post is here. Philip cannot read thoughts, so any replies will need to happen through other means. He won't get his memories back until late on the fourth day, so feel free to post starters across all days accordingly (or contact me if you want to set something up!) ]]

Comments

[radiopalkiller]

[ Philip crosses his arms. ]

Right, well, that didn't work out. Let's see, you're not- completely surprised at what I can do, but you still thought sniping me from a nearby building would work out well for you, somehow. I can't tell if that means someone fed you bad information, or if you just thought you'd get really lucky. Or, well, if you weren't thinking at all, I reckon that's an answer.

[ No need to bother with the transition, it's meant to look off this time: Because in an instant Philip stands behind him now, just by the edge of the roof. He looks out at the campus, back turned to Alex. ]

We'll get back to the name in a bit. Who wants me dead?

[rosswood]

[Obfuscation. Stepping around the issue. The world doesn't even skip or stutter, it's wholly seamless, and he's behind him. Kralie jerks around to face him - is it the real him? How can he be sure? How can he be sure?

He really should have brought some kind of destructive chemical compound to the whole building and wash his hands of it. Should've asked for more than just semtak from fucking Sanchez.]

People with standards.

[He snaps the retort out, drawing his sidearm with his free hand even if he doesn't yet fire it.]

The whole point of sniping is that you're not supposed to notice until it happens. Someone tip you off?

[radiopalkiller]

[ Not a fan of straightforward answers, huh? All right, let's see what Philip can do about that. Not give one of his own in return, for starters.

He jumps from the edge of the roof without care. On the spot where he stood the building starts to crumble, cracks in its structure rapidly seeping across the rooftop, snaking towards Alex's feet. Already the roof breaks off at its edges. The floor underneath him shakes precariously. ]

[rosswood]

[He doesn't anticipate that. The target jumps, Kralie lurches forward in alarm, only to immediately have his balanced disrupted when the building starts to tremble and shake. He grits his teeth. He nearly drops his sidearm.

Not real. Not real, it - it can't be real, what could possibly compromise the structural integrity of this so quickly, but his body shakes and he drops onto his hands and knees to maintain some level of balance, and his breath squeezes tautly in his chest before he grinds out the words, low and trembling and only subtly defiant, far too laced with uncertainty and fear:]

This isn't real. This isn't real.

[radiopalkiller]

Well, that's a relief, because I reckon otherwise this would really hurt.

[ Because the concrete cracks, the gaps underneath his hands and feet widen, and soon the entire structure breaks away. Alex falls with the rubble. Debris gets into his eyes and nose, while air rushes past him at an impossible speed. The ground races closer and closer and Alex kneels on a solid rooftop. Philip looks down on him from nearby, and cocks his head. ]

So. I think you were about to tell me something useful? You can start with your name.

[rosswood]

[Shit -

He's -

He's trying to ground himself, fingers digging into loose rubble and doing a poor job of it as the ground cracks away in chunks and fragments in an abrupt, uneasy, unprecedented dissolution of the building's walls and internal supports, and he can feel himself streaking for the ground in a tumbling drop, coughing and twisting raggedly to claw the earth from his eyes and mouth and nose with little success.

He will die here.

He will die here as a nobody, unsuccessful and unmourned, and the target's voice drills into his head and this cannot be real and he is caught in spontaneous free-fall and he chokes out the only thought that he can catch and hold in his brain:]

Eat. Shit.

[radiopalkiller]

Can't tell if that's an improvement over bullets. Probably not, though. Let's see, what's you poison? Critters?

[ Like spiders, crawling through tiny cracks in the ground, black and skittering up his legs, on and underneath his clothes, higher and higher until they cover him, until the smallest find their way into his nose, his ears, his-- ]

Something a bit more restrictive?

[ --mouth, whether his lips opened or not, because all the others are gone now, but that one, that one crawls down his throat thick and coarse, bigger from one moment to the next, stuck there and swelling without room to swallow, without room to breathe-- ]

Or I'll get lucky, and you're the low maintenance sort.

[ --out deeply, and in again freely, and the sound echoes in the pitch darkness around him. Black, black, black as far as the eye can see-- can't see more than the occasional flicker of something, a cold breeze coming from nowhere, and whispers of words too far gone to make out. ]

[rosswood]

[He'd scream, but his airways are filling with things, and he jerks in an agonized, unsuccessful attempt to dislodge them, stop the maddening itch of tiny legs racing up his skin, scuttling into every orifice until he can feel it growing, swelling like overripe fruit, thick and dark and hairy and it had been just like this, the way it spun its silvery thread and orchestrated his every movement and his thoughts and his actions and his mind were never his own.

The thought is abstract, and he cannot trace its etiology, and he does not attempt to, and then there is silence.

There is emptiness, and there is void, and he crouches there, eyes flicking desperately to one side and then to another as he tries to track something that cannot be tracked. Everything is empty, an almost complete sensory vacuum but for the whispers of infuriating sound he cannot put a name to.]

Get out. [He grinds the words out and cannot hear them. He tries to scream them, and he cannot hear them. Everything is silent but for the hiss of wind over his clothing.] Get out of my head!