2116/Weapon X: Salesman of the Year

Weapon X: Salesman of the Year
Date of Scene:	21 August 2017
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Rogue, Sabretooth

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Rogue has posed:
The wedding was days ago now, or at least the carnage that had originally been intended to be a wedding.

The groom had been slain defending the bride from a mysterious attacker. Giant creatures had flooded the wedding guests and a massive fight had ensued.

But in the end, the X-Men in attendance won the fight and returned the wedding guests and party back to Paris where several were in a hospital now.

Rogue had fled, after she'd held Remy LeBeau's dying body in her hands. He'd asked her to absorb him so that she could have him inside her head, it'd been his dying wish. She'd obliged. There-after, Rogue had taken to the skies and ended up on the Eifel Tower where she'd contemplated suicide with the assistance of a power-nullifying bracelet gifted to her as a wedding present prior to the ceremony.

But Doctor Strange had intercepted her, had saved her from the edge.

Now, days later, Rogue was still in Paris. Strange had set her up with a new hotel room and he'd asked her to stay in the city for the time being, to relax and decompress. Rogue was listening, spending the next several days visiting things and doing random stuff... just to keep her mind occupied.

Right now, she was wandering down a sidewalk by herself, her arms crossed over her stomach and her eyes down low. She was wearing a dark wine-colored shirt and dark blue jeans, some black leather boots. She had no gloves on, because she was wearing that power-denying braclet, meaning she was currently no stronger than an average human girl.

Sabretooth has posed:
Yesterday...

If the wedding had occurred a few years ago, Sabretooth probably would have beaten Spiral to the punch. Not necessarily because of any personal animosity, though. It's true that Sabretooth definitely had a low opinion of the sleazy Cajun, particularly after his perceived cowardice during his Marauder days.

No, the most likely reason that Sabretooth would have killed Gambit is that someone would have paid him to. Sinister, the Brotherhood, the Assassin's Guild, that guy who looks like a pig, old girlfriends... But unfortunately, Sabretooth isn't taking very many hit contracts these days. He's got a much steadier job.

"Never figgered out what Mystique and Magneto thought was so special about that kid. I always thought she was weak, and she ain't done nothin' to prove me wrong. Best take my advice and leave her alone."

Sitting in his chair with his feet propped up on the Weapon X Director's desk, Sabretooth puffs on a cigar as he looks through pictures and video feed from the Burgundy Wedding and its aftermath. On a scale of 1 to Weapon X, it honestly looks like a pretty tame affair.

The director, however, has been looking at the images with quite a bit more interest. Even now, he's willing to put up with the stench of tobacco and the stench of Sabretooth's feet (seriously, what kind of asshole puts his bare feet on another man's desk?), in order to convince the burly mutant to do his job.

"Agent Sabretooth..." When he starts out using formal titles, Sabretooth barely suppresses an audible groan. But he let's the man continue. "... this subject might not possess the killer instinct that you prize so highly, but that can be easily taught. What she DOES possess is a massive amount of power, which we could use. More importantly, she's in the most emotionally vulnerable position she's been in since... well... right before she joined the Brotherhood. Alone and isolated. Ripe for the taking, if we approach this correctly. So I'm going to need you to do your job, and bring in a promising recruit. Preferably with a bit of that finesse you keep telling me you're capable of."

Looking a bit like a scolded child, Sabretooth takes his feet off of the desk and slowly stands up. Leaning over the desk, he blows one last ring of smoke in the director's face before putting out the cigar on his desk (He doesn't have an ashtray).

"Fine boss, fine. Just remember when this goes tits up that I was again' it." He sounds very much like an old timey prospector when he says it...

Today...

"Okay boys, let me know when you've got eyes on the target. I'm gonna take a little nap while we wait. I got that jet lag."

None of the agents who came with Sabretooth bother to tell him that you can't get jet lag from teleportation. Spread out across the city of Paris, they don't do much as they watch the crowds with their spotter scopes and binoculars. Those who DO talk to each other mostly complain about having to miss the solar eclipse just to come recruit another mutant.

With his arms folded across his chest, Sabretooth drifts to sleep in the back of the van, confident that his target will come to him when the time is right. He doesn't bother sharing this information with anyone else on the team, but he can already smell her, getting close to the first piece of bait that he left for her.

Sabretooth has posed:
As his target walks down the sidewalk, alone with her thoughts, someone drifts past her in the crowd. With his back turned to the young lady, the man walks forward with an easy, sauntering strut, the tail of his brown trenchcoat fluttering behind him. Brown hair looks like it hasn't been washed in a few days, but it's styled in a half-assed manner. As he walks, something about the size of an index card is dropped casually from one of his hands right in the path of the approaching Southern Belle. He continues to walk, just close enough that she can see him, but not close enough that she can get a good look at him.

As she continues down the sidewalk, she'll eventually come across the small white object that he dropped on the ground: A simple, slightly faded playing card: The King of Hearts.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue didn't seem to be all that interested in looking at anyone on the street as they passed her, but this wasn't the busiest part of the city by any means. She was making her way TOO a busier part, to go do some shopping with money that Strange had supplied her with. But until then... she was just--

Rogue saw the card o nthe ground and she paused, her head came up and she looked toward the man that appeared to have dropped it.

Rogue would kneel down and reach out with her bare right hand to take hold of the card and lift it up to look at it... with her deep red eyes that she'd stolen from Remy.

"Monsieur? Excusez-moi Monsieur, vous avez déposé ce!" Rogue called out to the man, while rising up to her booted feet again and walking more hurriedly to try to catch up with him, her brown and white hair bobbing around her shoulders as she lightly jogged after him.

Sabretooth has posed:
"And... the Tango is at Phase Line 2." Up on the roof of a nearby building, a sniper stares down the scope of his giant rifle, his crosshairs squarely fixed on Rogue as she makes her way down the sidewalk. As she picks up the pace, he reflexively increases his lead to adjust for the time it would take a bullet to travel and intercept his target.

Too bad his orders are not to fire.

The man in the trenchcoat disappears behind a group of American tourists, who are certainly wide enough to do an excellent job blocking Rogue's view. He seems to be capable of vanishing at will, which was of course a skillset that people used to ascribe to one of Rogue's recently-departed acquaintances. However, although he has disappeared, he's left something behind at the spot that Rogue last saw him.

Another playing card: Another King of Hearts, this one with a couple drops of blood obscuring the figure printed on the front.

Back in his van, Sabretooth stops snoring as his rest is disturbed. "Dammit! I was just about to get to first base with Donna Reed! Don't bother me until she gets to Phase Line 4." He rolls over, turning his face toward the opposite side of the van, and tries to drift back to sleep.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue got blocked by the Americans indeed, and she ended up doing one of those horribly awkward dances of each person taking a step to get aaround the other person only to end up getting in each other's paths again. This was quickly followed by awkward laughter and machine-gunned apologies before Marie just nimbly turned and leapt between them and then started to run after the man who was getting away... the tourists glancing back at the 'crazy french girl with the punky-skunk hair' even though she was truly an American just like them!

Rogue saw the other playing card and she came to a skidding halt on the concrete, her flat heeled boots sliding an inching or two before she crouched again and grabbed this card as well... having no idea she was within the crosshairs of a sniper and that bracelet on her wrist meant she'd be dead in a heartbeat if he fired on her.

Rogue's red eyes inspected the card, the blood on it... "Monsieur!" She said again, rising up once again... "Where did he go?" She said with a thick grumble of frustration.

Rogue started forward, walking ahead once more, she looked for an alley or a doorway he could've ducked into...

Sabretooth has posed:
"Shit! S'no way I can get back to sleep now. Guess I'll just have to work my Donna Reed fetish out with the VR simulator." Sabretooth slowly sits up, taking up most of the back of the van. It's a good thing he has the place to himself. Aside from the driver, of course, who is busy trying to not let her disgust for the man show.

Back on the street, the man briefly appears on one of the balconies of a nearby apartment complex, overlooking a traditional French café. He quickly disappears inside the building, but not before dropping yet another card. It flutters down lazily, coming to a rest on the only table on the balcony.

Another King of Hearts. This one with hole right through the middle, and practically covered in thick, rapidly-drying blood.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue was just a few footfalls away from the third card as it landed on the pavement and she knealt down to scoop it up! This was no random person... was this him? Had he lived? Rogue lifted the card up and turned it around inspecting the hole jammed through it... that seemed a bit morbid for Remy. Something was definitely off about this.

Rogue's red eyes looked straight up toward the balcony and she sighed in frustration and she went to remove that bracelet from her wrist... instantlyr estoring her mutation and abilities.

Rogue glanced around on the Paris side-street to make sure she was seemingly alone and then she LEAPT straight up and over the railing of the balcony to land on her feet!

"Hello?" Rogue called out into the doorway that the man had disappeared into... starting to step toward it with hesitation and curiosity battling for control of her body.

Sabretooth has posed:
The door to the apartment is left hanging open, swinging lazily on creaking hinges. She just missed him, whoever 'him' is... The scent of body odor, cigarettes, and way too many spritzes of L'Air de Panache hangs heavy in the air, trailing behind the man like a greasy cloud.

It might be too morbid to be the genuine article, but whoever set this up definitely got the smell right...

The apartment is abandoned, but it's not empty. True, there's no furniture, and the incandescent lightbulbs are on the verge of blinking out entirely, but it's not 'empty'. The walls are covered in blown up images, professional photography shots from the wedding, black and white shots of the crime scene that it became in the aftermath. At seemingly random intervals, giant red spirals are painted on the wall with what can only be dried up blood.

It's the kind of thing only a serial killer would think is a display of finesse.

Back out in the van, a serial killer puts his shirt on, managing to avoid tearing it for once. It's pretty tough to dress yourself when the ends of your fingers are covered in knives, but this is one of those rare situations when Sabretooth feels pretty strongly that he'd be better off wearing a shirt. Even if it is just one of the unlabeled black tank tops that Weapon X operatives seem to have an unending supply of.

"There she is... So close I can almost smell her..."

The walls aren't the only thing in the room that's covered in blood. A long stain goes from the apartment's living room, all the way down the hall and to the front door. As if someone dragged a profusely-bleeding body out of the room.

All down the hallway, the images change. No longer images of the wedding and the murder scene, instead, they appear to be military-grade intelligence photos. They're taken over the course of years, and in locations all over the world, but they all feature the same subject somewhere in the photo. A woman that Rogue should recognize pretty easily.

After all, she tried to shove a sword through her just a few days ago.

Rogue has posed:
Once inside the apartment and out of the cloudy overcast daylight beyond, Rogue's eyes immediately adjust... Remy definitely had better vision than Rogue did, she was realizing now just how effective it was for things like this.

"What'n the hell..." Rogue muttered while she started to take in the sights and, smells, of this wretched place. It was like something out of a horror film that the guys at the school loved to watch on the weekends. It was disgusting, to say the least.

"This was all, planned out?" She quietly whispered to herself, eyeing the pictures of it all. But ultimately she wanted the hell out of here so she started to move toward that front door that had been left open, a dedicated and determined motion to her step!

Sabretooth has posed:
The trail of blood leads out the front door, out onto the landing, and down the concrete steps back to the ground level. Eventually the trail begins to fade, until it disappears entirely. But by now, the breadcrumbs have been changed completely.

Instead of playing cards or blood, the trail is literally littered with shots of Spiral. Some of them show her in action, gutting some poor sap. Others show her meditating, laughing maniacally, sunbathing topless, taking in an opera, or making avocado toast. You know, all the sorts of things you would do if you had six arms and a lot of time on your multiple hands.

The trail of photos leads all the way from the courtyard of the apartment building to a nearby alley, all the way up to a black van that's sitting with the engine on, idling.

Rogue has posed:
And Rogue wasn't afraid of really anything, especially with that nullifying braclet off of her arm. She gathered up photo after photo, wanting to have them in her possession for when she took all of this to... the police? No, back to Doctor Strange, he'd know what to do. She'd spen the past two days with him and he was an extremely helpful, if a bit eccentric, man.

Rogue stopped in her tracks though when her crimson eyes fell upon that of the black van. "Well... doesn't that just scream 'rapey'." She muttered with a heavy sigh, but again, Rogue wasn't afraid of such things, she knew she was more powerful than most anyone else. So she proceeded forward toward the van and reached up a bare hand to knock on it. "Hey asshole! Ya got somethin' t'say t'me, then ya come on outta there 'nd say it t'my face!" She shouted into the van, considering just pushing it over...

Sabretooth has posed:
It's certainly fair to assume that anyone who is chilling in the back of an idling van in an alley is probably some sort of creeper. However, it's also probably pretty fair to assume that whatever Rogue was expecting to come out of the admittedly creepy black van... this wasn't it.

The door to the van slides open at the touch of a button; a feature found only on the deluxe package, which Sabretooth likes to point out to anyone who notices. As the door completes its effortless electronically-assisted slide, Sabretooth sits casually in the back of the van, all by himself (aside from the driver), with his back to the wall and his face toward the now open sliding side door.

The van's unconventional seating arrangement is a bit more limo-esque than van-esque, with the seats on the sides of the van, to allow for lots of fancy equipment to be stored. But right now, the van seems to mostly just be hauling Sabretooth, and the collection of enlarged photos that he's got on his lap.

One of those photos is handed to Rogue as an ersatz form of greeting. It's yet another photograph of Spiral, one that seems to have been taken very shortly after the wedding, if her appearance is any indication.

With a muted, bemused smile on his face, Sabretooth sets the stack of photos off to the side. He doesn't look like he's in a hurry to leave his seat, nor does he look like he's got a whole lot to say to the young woman. He just looks her over for a moment, before finally breaking the silence.

"Expectin' someone else?"

Rogue has posed:
Rogue was glaring daggers at the van up until the door started open... then she got a bit of an uncomfortable feeling... so she stepped back two full steps, before the door revealed the man inside of it. That was NOT the person she'd been tailing the past several minutes.

"What the hell?" Rogue asked the man who clearly was not French. "Why the hell are ya'll leavin' weird-ass 'clues' for me t'follow?" She held up the photos and the playing cards. She noted the ones that Sabretooth was holding onto as well and nodded her head toward them.

"You drivin' around in a Whack-off Van is your business, jerk. But what the hell does it have t'do with me and why they hell are ya fter this six armed bitch?"

She didn't have much elese to say right now, so her eyes just kept on with the daggers, but now they were aimed right at Victor's face.

Sabretooth has posed:
"That's a lotta interestin' questions. Maybe one of these days I'll feel like answerin' one or two of 'em. But I got a question for you that's a lot more interestin'er."

If Rogue had known that she was going to set Sabretooth off on a supervillain monologue, she probably would have turned around long before she got to the van. Of course, then she'd have never known for sure what was going on, which probably would have bothered her the rest of her life.

The smile on Sabretooth's face becomes a bit more pronounced, exposing his very sharp canines. It's clear that he's enjoying making the woman relive her recent trauma, and he's certainly enjoying withholding information from her. It's a hobby of his. Ask The Runt.

"You see... I AIN'T lookin' for this six armed bitch, nor any other bitches. I ain't lookin' cause I don't give two shits about her, or what she's been up to lately. But I also didn't watch my pretty boy fiancé get his guts prodded by a psychopath."

Looking down casually at his fingernails, Sabretooth runs the nail of his thumb under the nail of his forefinger, ostensibly to clean out the gunk from underneath the nails, but also to make an annoying squeaking sound as metal rubs against metal.

"So my more interestin' question is this: How come I found this bitch so easy, when I don't give a shit, and how come YOU ain't even started lookin' for the woman what murdered your man?"

Rogue has posed:
Rogue seemed to get noticeably more angry when he commented on Remy being run through with a sword like it was a joke. She wanted to talk toward him and rip the side of the van off, maybe hit him a few times with that motorized door... but she knew that would end the 'pleasantries' and move this solely into a realm of punches and, maybe worse.

"How the hell am I supposed t'find someone that can teleport an entire field full'a people to another dimension? And commands an army of alien... demon... nerds? I don't even know where t'begin!" She shouted at him then, though this same conversation had come with Doctor Strange and he said he'd help her, but he wanted her to take a couple days to 'recharge first' so she'd agreed to that. Stephen was her best lead on this, though, maybe this guy was an alternative?

"You smell bad, by the way." Rogue said to him, eyeing him up and down. "How long have ya been sittin' back there in that rape van?" Rogue's red eyes looked up to the driver who wasn't looking at them. "That your boyfriend?" She asked. "He mad at you?"

Sabretooth has posed:
"The old-fashioned way: Look."

Sabretooth makes it sound so simple, and in reality it is. Especially when you're part of a team that has access to all sorts of fancy surveillance gear and has been working up profiles of the world's superhuman population for decades.

From the driver's seat, the woman who's been putting up with Sabretooth's BO all day turns around with an offended look on her face. She'd probably have joined Rogue in some display of sisterly camaraderie, especially if it involved insulting Sabretooth. However, that ship has sailed now that Rogue has mistaken her gender.

"Uh... hello? Two X chromosomes..." The agent in charge of driving Sabretooth interjects before getting quickly cut off by a bellow from Sabretooth.

"Nobody cares, Fun Bags! Face forward!" Terrified, the agent looks straight ahead, while Sabretooth picks back up where he was rudely interrupted.

"We can't all smell like spoiled crawdads and swamp ass like yer boyfriend. But I'm sure he smells real pretty now, what with his innards putrifyin'... Meanwhile, Spiral is laughing her ass off, tellin' everyone she knows just what a feeb Gambit was, how pitiful he looked when he died. Mostly though, she's laughing at you, sittin' around makin' sarcastic remarks when you SHOULD be gettin' ready for a fight."

Sabretooth doesn't look remotely offended. If anything, he looks as if he enjoys the chance to spar a bit. Maybe the girl isn't as much of a dishrag as he told the Director she was...

"'Cause mark my words, frail: Spiral's gonna be back one of these days, and right now you don't stand a chance against her. But maybe I know a place you could go that might give you the killer's edge you need to take down a raging psycho like Little Miss Mecha-Parvati."

Rogue has posed:
When the driver turned around and revealed herself to be a woman, Rogue's eyebrows went up a bit... that really had surprised her. But, eh, fuck it, who cares. The stolen red eyes looked back to Sabretooth then and she folded her arms across her stomach as he yet agained badmouthed her and Remy which just made Rogue shake her head.

"Thats some tongue on you, Brotein." She said back at the much older man. "Look." She said at him after hearing his play. "Love the mean sales pitch approach'n all, but I already got help. From the Burrito Supreme himself, Doctor Stephen Strange." She unfolded her arms off of her stomach and did little magic finger wiggles at Victor's face. "Guy can do literally anything with his mind and his magic, and he has a cape that is alive."

Rogue's arms crossed defiantly again and she tipped her chin up and looked down her nose at Victor like a real bitch. "What the hell can your Stank Van offe'ah up thats more bette'ah than that?"

Sabretooth has posed:
"This conversation is kind of... circular...." The woman up front dares to talk to point out the obvious. She sounds a bit nervous, almost timid, but that's perhaps to be expected from a non-powered agent. Fortunately for her, Sabretooth doesn't seem inclined to rip out her spine this time. After all, somebody's got to drive him home.

"You're right. You'd think we were tryin' to sell her somethin'." Nobody ever said that it'd be easy for him to convince a stranger to hop into a van with him, but perhaps the practice will be good for him in his future recruiting endeavors.

"I think you missed the point: I ain't offerin' you nothin'. If you want to get your revenge, you're gonna have to fight for it. And if you want to get sumthin' from Weapon X... you're gonna have to sacrifice damn near everythin' you've got left to lose. But just to prove that this ain't some sort of scam..."

Fast as a flash, Sabretooth's clawed hand reaches out toward the girl. One might be forgiven for assuming that he was planning to slash her throat for talking back to him. It's his usual MO, after all. But instead, he simply grabs her by the throat, his claws carefully kept away from her skin.

The palm of his hand, however? Not so much. His rough hand makes contact with the power-leech's skin, which must be the dumbest possible move he could have made at the time, right? Surely he knows what she's capable of.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue's eyes were forward on the driver while she listened to Victor's response and she just scowled at the driver.

Those red eyes went back toward Victor right as he came at her! Rogue took a half step back, but he was so fast and so agile that he was on her in a second and had his hand wrapped around her throat like a vice! Thankfully, Rogue had taken that bracelet off and was holding it in her right hand, which meant she had her strength and durability back... but it also meant she had her natural mutation back as well.

Rogue's red eyes went wide when that huge hand came around her throat, she looked up at Victor's taller face with shock and dismay as her left hand went up to grab hold of his wrist! Her mutation would quickly activate and it would feel like sleeping medication being administered through an I.V. as the average person would almost immediately start to black out.

But to make matters worse, Rogue's hands both shot forward in a double-fisted punch toward Victor's chest, intending to knock him back with powerful might right into the open door of that stalker van!