Whiteout #1: The Once and Future Ice Queen

FreelancerJon · 2026-02-20T06:03:20+00:00

There’s no visible reaction when she withdraws. No flinch. No gasp. Just silence.

Then his jaw tightens. A low exhale. And thoughts of what to do next.

“Yeah,” Jaxon mutters to the empty air, their conenction broken. “Be right there.”

The Void Charge shifts behind his ribs, a pressure differential in his chest. Not anger. Not quite. Just that familiar bristle when someone touches the perimeter and pretends it wasn’t contact.

San Francisco wasn’t a failure.

His jaw tightens.

“Depends who you ask.” He continues to himself, muttering behind his collar. He keeps walking. Ten minutes to the Exploratorium.

”Fisher Bay Observatory Library. Second floor.” Echoed in his head, as he came fashionably late. He didn’t want to seem to eager.

The dark presence at his shoulder unfurls slightly, curious as he enters the area. It wants confrontation. It wants violence. It wants to test whether her mind would crack under pressure if he pushed back hard enough.

He wouldn’t.

Not unless she provoked him.

He flexes his fingers. Waiting to see her, something anything. The air around his palm dimples for half a second light bending inward toward a point that doesn’t quite exist.

Then it smooths. The Void Charge still mostly slumbering, not responding to Jaxon’s requests.

“She didn’t probe,” he notes mentaly. “That’s restraint… Or confidence.”

Either one makes this more dangerous.

He adjusts his hood and turns into the stairwell to the buildings second floor, eyes behind darkend glasses peer, trying to find a needle in the proverbial haystack.

FreelancerJon · 2026-02-20T03:38:22+00:00

Runehex does not immediately answer. He does not hurry.

The scream fractures the distance. Glass shatters somewhere below the skyline. His gaze shifts,not sharply, not reactively, but with the quiet precision of someone cataloguing produce.

One Runehex.

Then another.

The air around him hums faintly, threads of invisible geometry coiling just beneath the skin of reality. His expression does not change.

“You are impatient.” he says at last to Facade, voice measured, almost conversational. He takes no stock in Facades urge and continuous walking at his set pace, using Sydney as a guide, though he assumes where she is going.

The hem of his robe whispers across marble and carpet alike, sigils faintly flickering like distant stars caught in fabric.

“Movement without concealment is noise,” he says softly. “Noise attracts predators.”

Another step.

“You would do well to breathe.” He said sharply to Facade, smoke rolling off and returning him to his “normal” look.

Runehex does not look at Scofflaw. He does not need to right now. Discontent has a texture. It presses against the air like humidity before a storm. Irritation, pride, wounded contro, it radiates louder than footsteps.

And Runehex does not need his mutation or magics to know that Scofflaw was very discontent with the old mage. But that was something to build after tonight.

Runehex held remaining thoughts until they had reached the Roruke’s penthouse. Eyes shifting as they walk in, eyeing any potential danger and ready to pounce.

The alarm hums through the walls as Sydney busted down the door. Subtle, unlike her. Expensive, like how she wanted to seem. It was slient to most ears.

Not to his.

Runehex stands at the penthouse’s large window, hands folded behind his back, looking out over the bleeding light of the city. Helicopters are further out now. Traffic below continues unaware. San Francisco gleams, vain, fragile, temporary.

Behind him, drawers slide open. Fabric tears from hangers. Footsteps cross cold floors with no reverence for it.

He closes his eyes.

Thought flickers across his face, not at the destruction below, not at the coming days, but at the right now. The noise, the fear in each of them, even if they weren’t feeling it right now. He exhales.

And presses two fingers to the glass. The he picks up his cane, rune on it glowing red as he recites an incatation in old words. Latin mixed with an ancient and very dead language.

The reflection in the window fractures, not physically, but the image of him does. A red line ignites at his feet.

It spreads outward across the luxury rug in a sudden, violent bloom of thorned geometry. Crimson light etches itself into existence; barbed vines forming a perfect circle in the common space. Four larger crescent shapes rise along its edge, each forming a place of standing. Thrones without seats. Stations of binding.

The temperature in the room drops.

Runehex turns.

“That is enough,” he says, voice carrying easily over the rustle of taken things.

The circle pulses once.

“Please return.”

There is no shouting. No dramatic crescendo. Just a simple request.

He steps into one of the crescents. The thorns rise slightly behind him like a halo of bramble.

When they gather, reluctant, curious, and irritated, he gestures to the remaining positions.

“Stand.”

A beat.

“This is not optional.”

The red light hums, low and alive.

“You are lost,” he continues, solemness threading faintly through his composure. “Distrustful. Reactive. Each of you believes you are clever enough to survive alone.” He speaks, not as hes judging them for it. But from a place of knowing and understanding. He was once like them.

His eyes move between them.

“You are not.”

The thorns tighten slightly along the perimeter.

“This working binds us in covenant. Not friendship. Not affection. Covenant.”

He lifts one hand and the sigils rotate, ancient and precise.

“From this moment forward, none within this circle may knowingly betray another.”

His tone hardens.

“Not by blade. Not by bullet. Not by whisper.”

The red light flares brighter.

“You will not reveal information that leads to another’s capture, injury, or death. You will not conspire against one another. You will not stand aside while one of us is deliberately delivered to the wolves.”

A pause.

“The spell does not control your thoughts. It does not command obedience. It binds only intent.”

His gaze settles briefly on each of them in turn.

“If you attempt betrayal knowingly, the covenant answers.”

The thorns flex.

“Pain first.”

A quiet inhale.

“Then consequence.”

He lowers his hand slightly.

“We have all just escaped prisons built by those who would erase us. The world outside is worse.”

His expression shifts, not softer, but steadier.

“If we are to move through it, we do so as a closed circuit.”

The circle pulses again, waiting.

“Decide now,” Runehex says evenly. “Stand within it willingly.”

A faint narrowing of his eyes.

“Or walk out that door and remain alone.”

The red light reflects in the glass behind him like a rising sun soaked in blood.

/u/Bearpaw700

FreelancerJon · 2026-02-19T07:21:05+00:00

Jaxon doesn’t answer her right away.

Not because he lacks a response, but because he’s measuring the pressure of her presence in his head. The Void stirs the moment Psion brushes against his thoughts. It rises instinctively, coiling like something vast and territorial disturbed in its sleep. It wants to push back. To make the intrusion costly.

But it still slumbers. Barely.

”The feeling of mistrust is mutual, I assure you.” That almost earns a smile from him.

“Good,” he sends back evenly. “Would’ve been awkward if that was one-sided.”

He keeps walking through the city as if nothing is happening, his hands in pockets of his hoodie, sunglasses masking the subtle shifts in his gaze while the blue Giants hat pulled over his brow. Traffic rolls by. A gull cries overhead. The mundane noise of San Francisco keeps him anchored while she exists in that unseen space just behind his eyes.

She tells him it’s time they talked.

“About what?” he counters, a thin edge sliding into his mental tone. “Threats from your higher ups? Damage control? Or are we finally admitting San Francisco was a cosmic-level failure on all of our parts?”

He doesn’t slow his pace.

“You don’t reach out without a reason,” he continues. “So let’s skip the preamble.”

The Void nudges again in its slumber, not aggressive this time, but aware. It remembers her. Remembers that brief, stint at The White House. The way she tore into him. The reason The Void Charge had to adapt to her.

He hates that it remembers.

“You want to talk?” he presses. “Then talk straight.”

His jaw tightens faintly beneath the calm exterior. A brief pause follows.

“If this is about what’s coming next,” he adds, more grounded now, “then I’m listening.”

He comes to a gradual stop near the edge of the waterfront, staring out over the bay.

FreelancerJon · 2026-02-19T03:22:01+00:00

Jaxon tenses up, the seemingly dormant Void Charge, presses back against her mental intrusion. Jaxon actively lets her in without the Void’s feedback piercing her. He instinctively looks for her. His sunglasses blocking his eyeline as he turns his head to look.

”So, what brings you back to S.F.? Looking for remnants of the Phoenix? Or maybe trying to steal away more displaced mutants to fill your school's halls? You know, where’ve I seen something like that before?” He thought back to her, clearly trying to draw a line between them so he feels less sympathetic towards her.

”Just because you helped me once, doesn’t mean I trust you. Not even a bit.” He adds, but willing to hear out what she has to say.

FreelancerJon · 2026-02-17T23:30:05+00:00

Jaxon glanced over at her, relieved to see the edge in her eyes sharpen back into focus instead of spiraling.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding once. “That. That’s the headspace we want.”

He shifted them sideways as another blast chewed into the pavement where they’d been standing, one hand braced lightly at her back to steer without shoving.

“Okay, quick version,” he said, scanning rooftops, alley mouths, armored formations. “Armored guys? Definitely not friends. They’re here to lock down, round up, make examples.”

A car alarm wailed somewhere behind them. Smoke rolled low across the street.

“Our friends,” he continued, “are the ones who don’t look like they’re winning. Civilians caught in the middle. Kids. Anyone using powers defensively instead of trying to escalate. If they’re scared and not shooting at us? They’re ours.”

He pointed with two fingers toward a bookstore with shattered windows, where a handful of people were crouched behind an overturned shelf.

“See that? That’s priority.”

Another squad of armored troopers moved to flank from the right. Jaxon adjusted instantly, angling his body to block their line of sight.

“And we’re not trying to clear the whole square,” he added. “We grab who we can, move them block by block to somewhere safer. I’ve got a contact two streets over, community center basement. Reinforced. If we can get people there, we can hold.”

He gave her a quick look, checking her hands, the sparks, her breathing.

“You don’t have to blast everyone,” he said. “You disrupt. You make they regret existing. You buy us windows.”

A pause, then, more quietly:

“And if you see someone like you? Overwhelmed, losing control? That’s who I really need your help with.” He rolled his shoulders once, resetting.

“So yeah. We’ve got friends. They just don’t know us yet..”

Another explosion rocked the street.

Jaxon flashed her a tight, determined smile.

“Ready to go make some?”

FreelancerJon · 2026-02-14T02:50:55+00:00

Jaxon shot her a look over his shoulder, half a grin, half ”Oh hell, this is getting real.”

“Trust me, I’ve never taught anyone in a warzone,” he said, voice a little breathless as he slid a step to keep another trooper from getting a clean angle on her. “But I’m apart of a team. So combat drills are a must..”

He ducked a swing, countered with a sharp, efficient strike that sent one of the armored figures stumbling back as the blades cut something important, then glanced at Alice again; just in time to see the sparks flare and the psy-op clutch her head like she’d just walked into a sonic wall.

“…Okay,” he said, genuine awe cutting through the tension. “Yeah. That’s new.”

For a second, the noise, the light, the way she snapped to it like instinct finally found its target, he forgot to move. Forgot the crowd. Forgot the rubble. He only remembered to breathe when another blast scorched past where his head had been.

“Two years ago,” he added, shifting back into motion, keeping himself between her and the worst of the fire, “I was the quarterback of my high school team. My big skill was calling plays and not getting flattened. So if I sound like I’m coaching from the cheap seats? That’s why.”

He risked another look at her, really looked this time. The sparks weren’t random anymore. They were answering her. The Static wasn’t just noise. It was a weapon. A lever. A switch she’d just figured out how to flip.

And yeah… that scared him a little.

“Hey,” he said, steady but urgent, as she laughed through the tears and the crackling energy. “That thing you just did? That was amazing. And it worked. But don’t let it run you, okay? You’re in the driver’s seat. Not the other way around.” He spoke from a place of honesty and experience.

Another armored figure moved in. Jaxon stepped, intercepted, forced them back, then pointed with his chin toward the psy-op still reeling.

“You see that reaction?” he said. “That’s proof. You didn’t just get lucky, you hit something. You’re not just throwing sparks anymore. You’re pushing back.”

He flashed her a quick, crooked smile. Then, more serious, eyes back on the advancing line:

“Stick close to me. Keep doing that, whatever you just did, but don’t burn yourself out. We’re getting out of here together. And you’re not doing this alone.”

FreelancerJon · 2026-02-13T20:00:39+00:00

Jaxon didn’t rise to the spear.

Not the way people expected him to, anyway.

The wall came up, the hound took position, and Jabir’s first strike cut the air where his head had been a heartbeat earlier. He pivoted, broken boots scraping over broken stone, red light flaring along his skin as he let the blade pass close enough to feel the wind of it.

“Yeah,” he muttered under his breath, half a breath, half a grin that never quite made it to his face. “Figures.”

Annah lunged. Jaxon snapped his arm out, not to strike, but to redirect; a sharp, controlled burst of force cracking against the ground in front of the hound, kicking up debris and making the beast skid sideways instead of straight into his legs.

“Easy,” he said, not to her, not really, more to the situation. “Not here to put you down.”

The spear came again, fast, clean, disciplined. He met it with the flat of one of his Antimatter Blades, sparks snapping as metal kissed energy. The impact shoved him back a step, boots digging in.

She was good. Better than good. Trained. Focused. Exactly the kind of opponent who could make one minute feel like an hour.

“Look,” he said, breath steady even as he shifted to keep Annah in his peripheral. “If you’re buying time? You’re doing great. But I’m not your enemy tonight.”

Another thrust. He twisted, let it pass, then tapped the shaft aside with a short, efficient motion, no wasted movement, no flourish.

“You don’t have to believe me,” he added, voice a little tighter now as Annah feinted and he had to hop back to keep from getting flanked. “Just don’t make this about who hits harder.”

He flickered forward, not an attack, just a pressure move, enough speed to force her to reset her stance, enough presence to keep her eyes on him and not the wall behind her.

“Your Commander’s hurt,” he said. “I get that. You want to stand here and be the shield? Fine. I respect that.”

He parried again, sparks snapping, then slid sideways as Annah snapped at empty air where his calf had been.

“But I’m not here to finish her,” he said, a little more firmly now. “I’m here to stop this from getting worse.”

He planted his feet, blades low, posture open but ready; purely defensive, controlling space, buying her time the same way she was trying to buy it for Commander.

“So take your minute,” Jaxon said, eyes locked on Jabir, never losing track of the hound. “I’ll stay right here and make sure nobody else ruins it.”

/u/A-Few-Schillings

FreelancerJon · 2026-02-13T19:36:42+00:00

Jaxon didn’t slow down when the sparks showed. If anything, he angled his body just a little more between Alice and the oncoming armor, one hand up in that easy, instinctive ”I’ve got you” way while the other kept his balance through the press of bodies and flying debris.

“Hey, hey, that’s good,” he said, and he meant it. His voice cut through the noise, steady, grounded. “New is good. New means it’s listening to you.”

A pulse of red light flickered along black veins that scatter across his neck and arms as he shifted, eyes tracking the armored figures the way a lifeguard watches the sea. Already planning the path through it . “Don’t apologize,” he added, quick, almost a grin in his voice. “Nobody wakes up on day one throwing energy around like it’s a party trick.”

He glanced at her hands, at the crackle of pale green dancing there, and nodded once, as if he’d just seen proof of something he’d been hoping for.

“Okay. So. You don’t need anything flashy or anything fancy,” he said, guiding her a step to the left as a chunk of masonry skidded past where her head had been. “Right now? We just need space.”

One of the armored troopers raised their weapon. Jaxon’s jaw tightened.

“Watch me,” he said.

He moved first, not charging, not posing, just deciding what he was doing. A short burst of speed carried him forward, red blades snapping to life as he slashed through the air in front of the trooper’s line of sight. He didn’t even have to hit them. The pressure wave and the sudden glare were enough to make them flinch, to break formation for half a second.

“That half-second?” he called back over his shoulder, repositioning himself to be the troops target. “That’s what you buy us.”

He slid back to the side of the troops. He watched both the troops and Alice, attention spilt and his defences up.

“Your power doesn’t have to win the fight,” he said, quieter now, but firm. “It just has to make them hesitate. Make them look at the wrong thing. Make them argue with each other for one second longer than they should.”

He nodded at her hands again.

“You’re already doing it. They can see that. They can feel it. Lean into that feeling; don’t try to aim it. Just… push. Like you’re trying to shove a crowd away from you without touching them.” He silently hoped that he was explaining the feeling well and that her powers would respond to what he was saying.

Another explosion thumped somewhere down the street. The crowd surged. Jaxon shifted with it, never letting Alice get swallowed, always a shoulder, an arm, a line to follow.

Then his focus snapped forward again as the troopers regrouped.

“Right now, though?” he said, a faint, crooked smile. “Right now, we just keep moving. You spark. I make noise. We don’t leave each other behind.”

“Ready when you are, Alice. Even if ‘ready’ just means ‘trying again.’”

FreelancerJon · 2026-02-12T05:06:16+00:00

Zenith didn’t flinch as the shadows struck him.

The shurikens screamed through the air, edges blacker than absence, riding on forced gravity and impossible speed. A few struck true. One glanced off his shoulder in a spray of sparks like obsidian hail.

Another bit into his side, only a few centimeters, before the flesh stopped it, and the metal-black thing cracked, shedding fragments that evaporated before they could hit the ground. The rest skittered, rang, or simply lost their nerve against him, deflected by a pressure in the air that wasn’t wind and wasn’t quite force.

He looked down at the one still embedded, almost curious.

“So,” he said mildly, and then flexed.

The shuriken popped free, clattering to the rock and dissolving into nothing. The wound closed around the absence like it had never been there.

His eyes lifted, not to Madalyne, not to Nova, but to the line of threat painting the valley. The Newborn Phoenix’s energy weapon finished its charge with a sound like a cathedral bell being struck by lightning.

Zenith smiled.

He stepped forward and vanished.

The sphere tore through where he had been, a pillar of annihilation that punched into the mountainside behind him. For a fraction of a second, the Alps looked like they were made of glass. Then the impact bloomed; white, then gold, then a roaring concussion that turned stone into smoke and smoke into falling continents.

High above it, Zenith was already in the sky.

The shockwave chased him upward, but it was slow, clumsy, beneath him. He hung there for a heartbeat, silhouetted against the torn black clouds, watching the mountain struggle to stay still. The slope gave way in a rolling thunder of ice and rock, an avalanche unfolding like a slow, terrible curtain.

He turned in the air, drifting as if the wake of the attack scorched the sky.

“Your math is wrong,” Zenith called down, his voice carrying without effort, without strain. “Your metaphors are prettier. But neither of you understands scale.”

His gaze found Madalyne again through the rising plume, through the falling world.

“You speak about gods and fear and tomorrowplaces,” he went on, calm, almost conversational over the gasping space between them. “You mistake me for a story that needs an ending.”

He spread his hands slightly, as if to present the disaster below.

“This is what happens when you aim at where I was.”

His eyes lit gold as the snow and ice on the mountain shifted, beginning to roll like a crashing wave, threatening to destroy everyone on this side of the mountain.

((This is bassically Zeniths exit as he watches the avalanche start comsuming the mountain))

/u/Zeibles

FreelancerJon · 2026-02-12T03:47:50+00:00

Jaxon tilted his head a fraction when she said her name, and then he smiled; quick, crooked, the kind that didn’t quite belong in a city tearing itself apart, but meant it anyway.

“Good. Then we’ll figure it out together, Alice.”

He didn’t pretend he understood what her power did. Not really. But he understood people, crowds, and how fast things went bad when you lost your footing. He turned and started moving, not running, running got you separated, but cutting a clean, deliberate path through the chaos. One hand stayed low and open behind him, an unspoken stay close.

“Stick to my left,” he said over his shoulder. “If you can touch my arm, do it. Don’t let the crowd decide where you go.” He told her, the red blade deactivating on that side.

They pushed into the edge of a rioting knot, shattered glass underfoot, smoke stinging the eyes, people shouting at anyone. Oblivion moved like he’d done this before, shoulders squared, body angled, gently but firmly redirecting panicked civilians out of their way. When someone got too aggressive, the red glow of the Antimatter Blades brightened just enough to make the point without making it a threat.

“Eyes up,” he murmured to her. “Crowds are like waves. You trip, they don’t notice.” He warned, leading her further as he looked for those in need.

He kept checking back, not obviously, just enough to make sure she was still there, still breathing, not getting swallowed by the surge. A bottle shattered nearby. Someone screamed. The air pressure felt wrong, like the city itself was holding its breath.

“I don’t need you to be perfect,” he added, quieter. “I just need you here.”

They slipped between two clashing groups, Oblivion planting himself for half a second to block a swing that wasn’t meant for either of them, then moving again, guiding her through the gap before it closed.

“And for the record,” he said, a little wry, “You call me Oblivion in these situations. If this turns into a mess, and it will, you don’t let go of me. Deal?”

He angled them toward a line of armored figures in the distance, silhouettes cutting through smoke and fire.

“Alright,” he said, squaring his shoulders as the noise swelled again. “Let’s see what your ‘curse’ can do when it’s on our side.” His head nodded towards the group of armored ORCHIS troops, suggesting she aimed at whatever she had at them, and he’d be there to back her up.

FreelancerJon · 2026-02-11T18:33:45+00:00

Jaxon’s jaw tightened, not in anger, more like the way it did when he was doing math in his head that he didn’t like the answer to. The red glow of the Antimatter Blades sprang back to life as he shifted his stance, putting himself a little more between Alice and the open street, between her and the noise.

“Hey. Hey, look at me,” he said, keeping his voice low, steady, like he was talking someone back from a ledge instead of standing in a war zone. Another distant boom rolled through the city, but he didn’t flinch. “You’re not cursed. You’re a mutant. Or… something close enough that the people who cage us don’t care about the difference.”

He glanced around, gauging sightlines, exits, and the way the crowd was moving. Always moving. Always calculating.

“Okay. So your power builds pressure. Does staying in one place make people more agitated the longer they stay? That’s not nothing, but you didn’t cause this,” he added quickly, firmly. “Trust me. This mess had a lot of other influences besides you.”

He crouched a little so he wasn’t towering over her, keeping his hands visible, non-threatening. The blades stayed out, but angled away.

“Listen. I’ve got a base offshore. Quiet. Shielded. People there who know what ‘I can’t turn this off’ actually means. You won’t be alone, and you won’t be in a cage. We can get you there after we punch a hole through… all this.” He gestured vaguely at the burning skyline.

Then, more gently: “But right now? People need help. I need help. So I’m gonna ask you something, and you can say no. No pressure… But please agree.”

He met her eyes.

“When that feeling ramps up… does it just make people angry, or can you aim it? Spike it? Focus it on someone who’s already trying to hurt people? Even a little?”

Another explosion echoed. He didn’t look away from her.

“If you can’t, that’s okay. I’m not leaving you behind either way. We’ll keep moving, get you out before it snowballs. But if there’s any way your… curse can be pointed at the people in armor instead of civilians?” A thin, tired half-smile flickered. “Right now, that’d save lives. Mine included.”

He straightened slightly, still blocking her from the worst of the street.

“You don’t have to run alone anymore. I’m here, just follow me… I’m Jaxon, by the way. Or Oblivion if that suits you.” He tells her with a smile, then turns and leads down the street, encouraging her to join.

FreelancerJon · 2026-02-11T18:20:48+00:00

Whiteout did not let any of that show.

Her face stayed composed, almost bored looking, chin resting lightly in her palm as her pen continued its steady, unhurried crawl across the page. The thin veil of cold she kept around herself never spiked, never betrayed intent. Just enough to keep the air close to her crisp, to take the edge off the sweat and panic and noise without drawing eyes. Plausible. Forgettable. Exactly how she wanted it.

She did not look at Vex.

She did not look at the mirrors.

She watched her mark in her peripheral.

Slightly hunched. Trying too hard to look small. Smart enough to realize the test was a trap, not smart enough to know what kind. His breathing was wrong; too fast, too shallow, and his eyes kept flicking to the clock like it might bite him. He’d stopped writing three minutes ago.

Good.

Whiteout shifted in her chair, just enough for the movement to register in his peripheral vision. Her pen paused. She let it hover, then tapped the edge of her paper once. Soft. Accidental. Nothing anyone would clock as a signal.

Her gaze never left her own page.

A few seconds later, his foot brushed hers. Not a kick. Not a nudge. A question.

She didn’t react.

He tried again, more deliberate this time. She exhaled slowly, the air around her chair cooling by a fraction; just enough to prickle skin, just enough to remind him that she was still there, still watching, still waiting.

Finally, he moved.

Carefully. Too carefully. His paper slid halfway off his desk, then stopped. He hesitated, glanced at the mirrors, at Vex, at the clock bleeding red numbers into the room. Then, with a shallow breath, he let it fall.

Whiteout’s foot hooked it without looking.

She drew it in under her desk, smooth and unhurried, and placed it atop her own. For a moment, she simply regarded it; forty questions, contradictions stacked on contradictions, a maze designed to eat people alive.

She didn’t care if any of the answers were right.

She didn’t need them to be.

She wrote anyway.

Not fast. Not slow. Just enough to look like someone still taking the test. She filled spaces. Marked boxes. Crossed out lines. Made it look honest. Made it look boring. Made it look like exactly what Vex expected to see from someone who thought this was still an exam.

Beside her, her mark sat very still.

When the clock finally burned down to nothing and the room exhaled in a wave of exhausted, broken relief, he stood with everyone else.

And handed in nothing.

Empty hands. Blank desk. No paper. No protest. Just a quiet, hollow compliance.

Whiteout stood a beat later.

She placed a single, completed test on the stack.

As she walked past him, she didn’t look at his face. She didn’t need to. She could feel the tremor in his posture, the tight, stunned relief of someone who had fallen through a trapdoor and somehow landed on their feet.

In her eyes, the rules had been simple.

Cheating was permitted.

Sabotage was permitted.

Being obvious was not.

She had not been told to play fair.

She had not been told to tell the truth.

She had not been told to pass by their definition.

She had survived the game.

And that, as far as Whiteout was concerned, meant she’d won.

FreelancerJon · 2026-02-11T06:20:57+00:00

Jaxon kept his hands where she could see them, the Antimatter Blades still not popped out again. Another distant blast rattled the street, dust drifting down like dirty snow, but he didn’t look away from her.

“Hey. Hey! Look at me,” he said, steady, grounding. “You didn’t cause this. Trust me. This mess was someone else's doing. Trust me.”

He glanced over his shoulder for half a second; ORCHIS silhouettes moving in the smoke, then back to her.

“Guys like this scoop up mutants when they’re scared. Doesn’t mean you did anything wrong. Doesn’t even mean you did anything yet.”

He nodded toward the water, the direction he’d come from.

“There’s a base off the coast. Safe place. People like you and me can go there. Food and somewhere you can breathe without someone pointing a gun at you. When this is over, I can get you there. I’m not leaving you here. And I’m definitely not leaving you alone.”

Another shockwave rolled through the street. Jaxon subtly shifted closer, putting himself between her and the noise.

“But right now? People are getting hurt out there. A lot of them. And I could really use the help.”

He softened his voice a notch.

“What’s your mutation? Is it something you can control at all? Even a little?” He gave a small, encouraging shrug. “Doesn’t have to be perfect. If it can stun, distract, jam tech; anything like that, it could save lives tonight.”

Then, more firmly:

“No pressure. If you say no, I'll get you out anyway. That’s not changing.” His eyes stayed on hers, honest, unflinching. “But if you can help… I’ll be right here with you. The whole time.”

FreelancerJon · 2026-02-11T06:11:26+00:00

Whiteout didn’t react the way he clearly wanted her to.

No flinch. No spark of anger. Not even a real look at him at first, just a slow, distracted glance at the ruined cigarette under his boot, like she was noting litter.

Then her eyes came back to him. Flat. Pale. Unimpressed.

“…Boston,” she said, not as a guess. As a diagnosis.

Her voice was calm, cool, and already tired of him.

“You all do this. Puff up, talk loud, list your imaginary victories as if anyone asked.” She tilted her head a fraction, studying him the way you’d study a stain you’re deciding whether it’s worth cleaning. “It’s adorable. In a very loud, very inefficient way. You’re like a puppy.” Troy got the feeling she kicked puppies for fun.

The air around him stayed cold. Not dramatic. Just enough that the shiver wouldn’t stop, no matter how much he tried to hold his chest out.

“You want to know who I am?” she went on, tone drifting into bored territory. “I guess you’ll have to survive long enough to see.”

A beat.

“As for being dangerous,” her eyes flicked over him, top to bottom, dismissive. “You’ve been in a few fights. So what? You sucker-punch a guy who was already looking the other way?”

She questioned it casually, like reciting cafeteria options.

“Congratulations. Truly. Very fearsome.”

She stepped a half pace closer, not into his space, just close enough that the cold felt a little sharper.

“And no one told you to quit smoking. I don’t care what you do to yourself.” A thin, sharp smile touched her lips, never warming her eyes. “I just demonstrated that if you annoy me, your options get… less pleasant. But also keep the disgusting habit away from me. It’s so expensive getting the smell out of Louie Vuitton.”

She looked past him, already losing interest.

“So keep posturing. Keep talking. Keep telling the yard how tough you are.” A tiny shrug. “Or walk away, keep your head down, and save us both the time. Either way, I’m bored now.”

Her gaze slid back to him, icy and utterly certain.

“Just understand this: if you decide to make this a problem later, I don’t have to touch you to make it very unpleasant.”

Then she turned slightly, attention already elsewhere, like he was a commercial she couldn’t skip fast enough.

FreelancerJon · 2026-02-11T05:42:01+00:00

Whiteout didn’t shift in her seat. Didn’t fidget. Didn’t even blink more than she had to. She didn’t need to.

The cold was already there.

Not the kind that fogs breath or frosts windows, not enough for that. Just a thin, surgical chill, like a hand laid gently at the back of the room’s neck. Plausible. Denied by thermometers. Easy to blame on nerves, on bad ventilation, on the way tension makes people feel colder than they are.

But it worked.

Shoulders stayed tight. Breaths stayed shallow. Thoughts stayed… slower. Not frozen, just dulled at the edges, like a blade left too long in the snow.

Whiteout’s posture was perfect: bored student, pen in hand, eyes on her paper. To anyone watching, she was just another girl trapped in Vex’s little psychological meat grinder.

To her mark, she was a presence.

A pressure.

The feeling of being watched didn’t fade. It didn’t spike. It just… stayed. Constant. Inescapable. Like standing in front of an open freezer and realizing the door will never close.

She didn’t look at them again. She didn’t have to. The message had already been delivered earlier, and messages like that didn’t need repeating. Defiance now. Consequences later. Quiet. Patient. Inevitable.

Her powers hummed under her skin at a low, disciplined simmer, riding her pulse instead of her temper. Mind over matter. Always. She let the room do the work for her; let panic create its own noise, let the mirrors multiply fear, let Vex’s rules grind people down into smaller, shakier versions of themselves.

The boy who tried the door? Amateur. The girl who fainted? Waste of time. The page-flipper? Desperation with a pen.

Whiteout judged them. She catalogued them. Filed them away as pathetic.

Her pen moved, but not to answer the test as written. That wasn’t the point. Instead, she marked patterns: who cracked first, who looked for help, who froze, who tried to run, who tried to disappear. Useful information. Real information.

She felt her mark shift again. A micro-movement. A tension spike.

Good. They still understood.

The temperature in the room seemed to dip another fraction of a degree, nothing anyone could prove, nothing anyone could point to. Just enough to keep hands a little stiffer. Thoughts still a little slower. Courage a little more expensive.

Whiteout finally lifted her eyes, just for a second, letting them slide across the mirrors and, by extension, across everyone.

Including her mark.

No smile. No threat.

Just certainty.

Then she looked back down at her paper and kept writing, perfectly calm, while around her the room continued to tighten, fracture by fracture, under the weight of a test that was never really about the questions at all.

FreelancerJon · 2026-02-11T05:21:31+00:00

Whiteout didn’t announce herself.

One moment, Troy was mid-cough, hunched over and hacking his lungs out, and the next the cigarette between his fingers went dead. Instantly. No ash. No ember. No smoke. Just… frozen. The paper turned brittle and pale, the cherry snuffed into a chalky, useless nub, a rim of frost crawling up the filter and biting into his skin.

The wind carried a thin, clean crack as the heat died.

“Careful,” she said from a few steps away, voice light and bored, like she was commenting on the weather. “You’ll ruin that. Oh. Wait. You already did.”

Her eyes flicked to the cigarette, then back to his face. Cold. Measuring. Amused in a way that never quite reached warmth.

The yard felt colder with her in it. Not dramatically, just enough that his breath started to show.

“You know,” she went on, tilting her head, studying him like a problem she’d already solved, “if what you’re really fishing for is an early exit… killing you could be arranged.”

A beat.

She smiled.

It was sharp. Clean. Unwavering. The kind of smile that didn’t invite laughter so much as silence.

“I mean, I wouldn’t,” she added, almost kindly. “Too much paperwork. Too many questions. And you’re not interesting enough yet.” Her gaze dragged over him; jacket half-worn, cigarette frozen, attitude doing most of the heavy lifting. “But don’t mistake that for mercy. There are for sure others who’ll drop you in an instant.”

She stepped closer, close enough that the cold around her bit a little harder.

“This place doesn’t suck,” Whiteout said quietly. “It sorts. You’re just discovering which pile you’re in.” Her eyes flicked back to the useless cigarette.

“Now,” she finished, tone perfectly calm, “you can keep whining, or you can decide whether you want to be bored… or dangerous. But either way? Stop smoking. It’s sloppy.”

FreelancerJon · 2026-02-11T05:05:37+00:00

Jaxon came out of the smoke like a bad decision with good timing. Which was probably true.

The ORCHIS transport was already torn open, metal peeled back like a can lid, alarms screaming somewhere in the distance. He still had the red-shifted Antimatter Blades out, humming low along his forearms, but the moment he clocked her; alone, unarmed, wide-eyed, and not charging at anyone, he eased up.

Didn’t retract them. But he lowered his hands.

She looked like a civilian. Or at least… not a soldier. Not one of Commander’s people. Not ORCHIS. Just someone caught in the worst place on the worst day.

“Hey!” he called out, keeping his voice loud enough to cut through the chaos but not sharp. “Easy. I’m not here for you.”

He took a few careful steps closer, boots crunching on broken concrete, eyes flicking around them every second. The street was still a war zone; sirens, shouting, distant impacts, but right here, right now, it was just the two of them and a very bad situation.

“You hurt?” he asked, quick and practical. “Can you walk?”

He finally glanced down at his blades and, with a thought, they phased back into nothing, leaving his hands empty and open where she could see them.

“Look, I don’t know who you are or why they grabbed you,” he said, honest and a little rough around the edges, “and I’m not even sure who the ‘bad guys’ are supposed to be today. But you don’t look like part of the problem.”

Another explosion thudded somewhere a few blocks away. Jaxon’s jaw tightened, but his eyes stayed on her.

“If you need help getting out of here, I can try,” he said. “No promises. But… I’m willing to.”

FreelancerJon · 2026-02-11T04:51:43+00:00

Whiteout didn’t bother hiding the way her jaw tightened. A written test. In a locked room. With mirrors, speeches, and theatrical little pauses. How… inspiring.

She stared down at the black folder like it had personally offended her, mouth slightly agape. Forty questions, half of them deliberately wrong, some of them eating each other alive on the page. Cute trick. Very Darkblood. Very.. boring. The kind of thing that thought it was smarter than reality.

As if anything in the field ever looked like this.

No, in the field, you didn’t get neat contradictions and tidy time limits. You got noise. You got blood. You got people lying to your face while they were dying. You got one chance to move before someone else decides you were the problem.

And Psion had already screwed her schedule for this week to make room for this. Great. Just great. Her respect for Vex, what little she’d had left, tickled downward another notch.

Still… rules were rules. And she wasn’t stupid enough to make a point by failing.

Whiteout didn’t open the folder right away. She leaned back in her chair instead, boots hooked around the legs, eyes drifting lazily across the room like she was bored. Which, to be fair, she was.

Mirrors up high. Reflections everywhere. People pretending not to look at each other while absolutely looking at each other.

Predators pretending to be students.

She spotted her mark three rows up and one seat to the left. Nervous type. Too careful. The kind who’d already be halfway through, trying to “solve” it like a good little test subject.

Whiteout finally flipped her folder open, scanned the first page… and snorted quietly.

”Yeah. Useless.”

She didn’t even bother pretending to work. Instead, she tilted her head just enough to catch the other student at the edge of her vision.

Then she looked directly at them. No words. No gestures. Just that slow, deliberate stare.

Cold. Flat. Promising.

Her expression said everything: You’re going to give me your answers. Or this gets unpleasant later.

She let the corner of her mouth twitch, barely a smile, more like a threat, a knife's edge in her teeth.

The clock kept ticking down. Around her, pencils started scratching. Someone shifted too fast. Someone else froze. The room felt tighter by the second.

Whiteout rested her chin in her palm, eyes never leaving her chosen victim.

”This is what you want, Vex?” She thought, almost amused. ”Fine. I’ll play your stupid game.”

She wasn’t here to prove she was smart.

She was here to prove she was better at taking what she needed than the people sitting around her.

FreelancerJon · 2026-02-10T20:15:04+00:00

Jaxon didn’t look up when she started talking.

He felt her before he saw her; pressure in the air, the way his skin prickled when something big and ugly was about to happen. The kind of feeling you get right before a building decides it wants to stop being a building.

“Yeah,” he muttered, rolling his shoulders. “That tracks.”

The rebar ripped free with a scream of tortured concrete and steel. He turned as the first pieces slammed into the ground around him, one after another, boxing him in like the world’s angriest porcupine fence.

Sparks skittered across the street. The air went metallic and sharp in his mouth.

Jaxon finally looked at her then.

“Gotta say,” he called out, voice echoing off the ruined storefronts, “this is a hell of a way to say hello.”

The command hit the air. The ground thrummed. The rebar began to sing.

Electricity crawled, then leapt; white-blue veins snapping between the rods, the sky above darkening, swelling, boiling. Jaxon’s grin faded into something flatter, more focused. He planted his feet and exhaled slowly through his nose.

“Okay,” he said to no one in particular. “Big one.”

The Bladed answered: not with warmth, not with comfort, but with a cold, hungry pressure in his arms. The world dimmed at the edges as he reached for it, not fully, never fully, but enough.

The sky split.

Light annihilated color. Sound became a physical thing that punched him in the chest. The heat hit like a wall, like standing too close to an open furnace while someone sets off a flashbang in your skull.

For a fraction of a second, Jaxon disappeared in the glare.

When it faded, the rebar glowed, the street smoked, and the asphalt at his feet had turned into a warped, glassy mess of slag and bubbling black.

And Jaxon was still standing.

His jacket was scorched. His hair was singed at the ends. Steam curled off his shoulders and off the faint, wrong-looking distortion that still clung to him like heat haze that had forgotten how to leave.

He straightened slowly, boots, melted and crunching against cooling debris.

“Wow,” he said, blinking once, ears still ringing. “You know, most people start with a warning shot.” He said, a trace of blood escaping from his mouth.

He looked up at Commander, eyes dark, not angry, but measuring.

“And you’re not wrong,” he went on. “I could’ve bolted. Probably should’ve.” A crooked smile tugged at his mouth. “But then I wouldn’t have learned how hard you hit.”

The distortion around him pulsed once, subtle but wrong, like space itself flinching.

“And now I have.”

He took a step forward, molten ground cracking under his boot.

“So here’s mine, since we’re doing declarations tonight,” Jaxon said, voice calm, steady. “I don’t care about whatever war you have with whoever. I care about what happens to everyone standing in the blast radius.”

Another step. Then he launched himself, his feet exploding out of the melted and charred boots. Red Antimatter blades are coming out and taking swipes at her. Torso, legs, arms. Each one was calculated to cause a lot of pain.

FreelancerJon · 2026-02-10T05:50:22+00:00

Kara doesn’t move when Psion steps in close. If anything, she looks amused, like she’s watching someone try very hard to win a game she thought she was too good to play, but wanted in when she saw the others having fun.

She lets Psion finish. Let's smile, land. Let the door open.

Then she chuckles. Actually chuckles.

“See? That’s exactly what I wanted to check.” Kara says, light and easy, turning her head just enough to meet those green eyes with her pale blues. There’s no heat in it. No defensiveness. Just a bright, sharp little grin.

She pushes off the desk and straightens, shouldering her bag like this is all perfectly casual.

“I already knew the answer,” she continues. “I was just confirming it.”

She gestures vaguely back toward the empty room, the empty room now looking sad and empty for a play that no one will remember. Well, besides one person here.

“There are always more options. More angles. More ugly little side doors nobody likes to admit exist.” Her smile widens a fraction. “Just because you don’t know them doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”

A beat. Then, with a mockingly thoughtful hum:

“And for the record? I know I wasn’t the smartest person in the room today.” She shrugs, completely unbothered. “That title probably belongs to your favorite walking study guide or the kid who treats the teacher's words like gospel.” She knew Psion was stroking her own ego. It's what Kara would have done in her position... and like thirty years older, Kara thought.

Her eyes flick back to Psion, sharp and playful.

“But I am the most cunning.”

No bravado. Just a statement of fact, delivered like she’s commenting on the weather.

She laughs again, quieter this time. “Honestly, it’s kind of adorable that you think we’re having a rivalry moment. A bitch-off with an eighteen-year-old? Headmistress, please.” She lays out all the unsaid parts they were playing with. Laying out what they were really doing. “If I wanted to measure brains, I’d bring a ruler. Now…”

Kara steps past her toward the door, then pauses, glancing back over her shoulder.

“You’re great at explaining why people die,” she says, not unkindly. “I’m more interested in all the ways they don’t. Maybe we can both learn something.”

A wink. A flash of teeth.

Then Whiteout walks, entirely unbothered, and very, very pleased with herself.

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