#armouropen

[iwasgroomedtobethebest-blog]

Does anyone know how to make cakes?

I attempted to make one earlier, but it did not turn out well.

[prydeofthexmen]

Reform | Open

Reform was necessary.

Armour may have been lost, students and professors too but there was still some left standing. The dead would be mourned, the living celebrated for their bravery but many of those living were still young people, shaken by the reality of the world they had entered. They may have signed up to be spies, assassins, hackers, anything SHIELD wanted them to be but there was a romantic element to the job; the things they'd seen in movies, read in books. This event had been the wake up call. Being an agent was not easy and it would never be a safe occupation. Armour, for all its faults, had been cosy; lulling everyone into a false sense of security.

That ended the day HYDRA destroyed SHIELD.

As Kitty had walked up the stairs to the podium in the assembly hall, Raven's words had echoed through her mind. Logan teach you well enough to have a plan right about now? Of course. Kitty had a plan since before the attack had even occurred. She had been ready for a worse case scenario ever since she'd found out HYDRA had brainwashed one of her closest and dearest. Unity was what she called it. A united front; humans, mutants, mutates, aliens and anything and everything inbetween. They would not let HYDRA ruin what connections they had established. They would remain united, as they always had.

"I have gathered you all here this morning because I believe it is time we address what tragedies we have suffered. Those who stayed and risked their lives on the field to ensure as many people as possible were saved, you are a credit to humanity and if the heroes that once walked these halls were here, they would thank you and drink to your names. Unfortunately, they are not here and many of our peers died in action but they will not be forgotten and their sacrifices will not be in vain. All those that wish to return to their homes and their parents are free to do so but this school will reopen under a new name for those who wish to continue their educations and lack any other sort of home."

"Unity Academy will run in a similar way to Armour with myself and," Kitty gestured to Bran, who was stood beside her, "Bran Driscoll as the Heads of the Academy. There will be divisions, giving you opportunities to work with others who share your skills. Teams that will be formed so that we can give you experience in the field that SHIELD sorely denied you. We do not ask you to risk your lives if you did not wish to do so but the world is a harsh place and in the absence of SHIELD, it is vulnerable. I ask you; who is a better choice to defend the world than those who survived HYDRA's many heads? I, for one, can not think of a group of people I'd rather stand back-to-back with on the battlefield."

"If you have any questions regarding Unity Academy, please feel free to approach either myself or Mr Driscoll."

[likeastinger]

Texts - Open

Cassie: Please tell me your're okay

[heat-storm]

F2F || OPEN

There was something terribly ironic about watching her home envelop in flames. She'd watched in the rear view mirror of her car for awhile before being forced to turn onto small side streets, by guide of Raven who'd rode with her before demanding to be dropped off so she could secure a vehicle of her own. Something about having a proper ride with actual doors and honest to god seats, should they come across others who needed a lift. Kebira didn't argue; during the entire drive, with and without Raven in the car, she was silent. She was silent in voice and mind because it was easier that way. On their way out of the pandemonium, she'd done it again. Another 7 times, maybe more. 8 people in one night. That was a hell of a start. 

Raven had said she didn't need to - kill people, that is. She just needed to be on the defense but that was easier said than done, like most things. Once it was done, why stop? It further secured her safety and it turns out, unsurprisingly, that just settling and taking people down took far less effort than trying to force them into a heat stroke or heat attacks. It was easier to kill people, but it wasn't easier to live with. The pay off for that would come soon enough, Kebira was sure.

There were very few who beat her to the mansion and she took advantage of that. Kebira didn't stay on the ground level to mingle or check the faces of those who were there and those that were arriving - it didn't matter who was or wasn't there, they'd be there later and she would see them when she wanted to, or when they hunted her down. Seeing them now and dealing with their questions and whatever else they'd burden her with wouldn't relieve her of anything, just further stress her. A quick run up the stairs and she found silence in one of the many, many rooms Xavier's had to offer. How many people did this place house?

She was foolish enough to wonder what it would have been like to have been one of the lucky ones to have experienced it all. There were countless names she knew better than faces: Logan, Ororo, Scott Summers, Bobby Drake, a girl called Rogue. Could she have been one of those names people knew? With the title, she should be, but she wasn't. That honor was granted with having lived here, it seemed.

There was a staleness in the air of the unopened rooms and a fine dust lined the dressers and desks that were pressed against the walls. 2 beds to each room, mostly. Some had more, some less. She settled for the first she found, still occupied with books of miscellaneous topics and a pin board with photographs. Mutants with varying mutations were shown, Kitty in the background of some. And faces of the names she knew but didn't know. Maybe in another universe (as it seemed there were many, from Kitty's tales), she was in some of these photos. The photos she was in were no more though, turned to ash and lost to spies and betrayers. HYDRA. Who would have thought something like that was still a threat, to this kind of level? 

It was useless to think about, wondering about the would have and the could haves, but it was better than thinking of the now and the known. Better to focus on something less harmful that the guilt that would surely begin building on her consciousness. An hour into her stay - or hiding, more accurately - it was getting harder to ignore the swirling heaviness that pulses at the top of her skull. It was growing louder downstairs and that meant more were arriving. It meant more people survived. That was great to know, sure, but it perturbed Kebira regardless. She was sat on a bed she'd claimed as her own, her bag she'd saved tossed on the edge of it and her hands had occupied themselves with ripping apart her cigarettes. Tearing and scatter the tobacco across the duvet, twisting and wearing down the filter - anything to distract herself. It didn't take long for the door to finally open, she'd expected somebody to wander to the room sooner, and once it did she glanced up. "There's another bed," she offered, surprisingly compliant. Her fingers continued to tear at the paper and then dropped the remains and pulled another cigarette from the emptying pack. "I doubt it's claimed yet."

[likeastinger]

F2F | Cassie & Open

Cassie was by no means beefy. When she got large, she was incredibly strong. She could demolish a building with a punch. However, when she was 5'3 and had bulky first prototype wings on her back, she lagged. The fight had been fun, between the eventual help of bugs as a distraction, she got a small group of students out. However, they had been followed, and Cassie had doubled back to throw the agents off. It had worked, but her wings were no where near ready to use this hard. Four hours of on and off flight, and Cassie finally saw the mansion. She almost cried, but with the new rush of adrenaline, her vision blurred and the edges of her sight went black. She was panting, not realising how tired she was, and though her momentum carrier her closer to the mansion itself, her wings cramped and as Cassie floated in and out of consciousness, the ground hurtled quickly closer. She was at no height that would kill her, but this was certainly going to leave a mark when she woke up.

[prydeofthexmen]

Text | All students

Kitty: This is Professor Pryde.

Kitty: I am aware not all of you will manage to receive this text but for those who do receive it, let me know you're safe.

Kitty: If you need someone to come pick you up, I'll leave the second you reply.

[prydeofthexmen]

Text | X-Men

Kitty: WHERE ARE YOU ALL

Kitty: I'm at the mansion

Kitty: But I haven't moved to see if any of you got here.

Kitty: If you're here, I'm still lying in the entrance hallway.

Kitty: If you're not here, tell me where you are and I'll come get you.

[hawkeye-numbertwo]

F2F || Kate & Open

If there was one thing Kate really hated, it was hospitals. She stopped in to get bandages and they'd kept her for almost an hour, put her through the emergency rooms as soon as she'd said her name. She hated the Bishop thing sometimes, but getting fast medical attention wasn't one of those times. Apparently she'd had 10 stitches, 8 in her leg and 2 on a head injury that she hadn't even known she had until she'd been treated for it. When she had looked in the mirror, Kate thought she looked a lot worse than she felt. Her wounds had been cleaned, but she had ash and blood all over her torn up suit and clumps of unidentifiable battle stuff in her hair. She was fuzzy from the pain killers they'd given her, even though she'd asked them not to they'd told her it was that or sedation. They'd even kept her numb for the nearly two hour journey to Xavier's.

Winning was a strange word to use on such a bloodbath, even though HYDRA had their school, with all they lost neither side really won. It was worrying, how she'd have thought of this as awful once, but now she just counted it as a positive that there were more dead HYDRA than dead SHIELD. They'd lost the school, they'd lost their belongings but these things they lost were just material. Maybe she was spoiled, but buildings and stuff didn't matter that much to her and she still had hope that her friends were okay even if they got separated. She'd lost track of how many people she'd shot, and she didn't want to think about how many she'd hit them in a way that probably killed them even if she didn't intend it to thanks to her head spinning. She would think about that some other time. Now she was just hopeful, determined. Hopeful that they'd be able to survive this as a school, and determined that her friends were alright. They had to be.

Kate walked the short distance from the tube station to Xavier's with a floating numbness that was only broken when she put too much weight on her leg. She got out her phone that she'd had tucked in her bra for GPS, but when she saw the building it wasn't like she could have mistaken it for anywhere else. She walked into the building with her limp, searching wildly for anyone she recognized. She hoped people were here already, she'd made a detour to the hospital and she guessed most people would have got there as soon as possible. "Hello?" She called out as she came in the front entrance, looking for familiar faces. Between exhaustion and the mild nagging pain she could feel through the numb fuzz of the painkillers, she felt a sting in her throat at the sudden panic when nobody responded immediately. She was terrified that she'd be the only one there.