FIRE-SONG

Chapter Two: Team-X

Ava's P.O.V

As the Director slows his pace, Ava is forced to a halt at his side. Under the umbra of his shadow, she feels somewhat protected---as anyone would be when draped beneath the secure wing of the most feared and respected individual currently in the organization. However, she cannot help but be acutely aware of just how exposed she is to her new...coworkers, for lack of a better term.

Stryker has placed the mutantess in the crosshairs of a merciless optic assault. Each and every eye belonging to her new pack of war scathes her skin with a searing judgment, while passing silent comments of speculation and mockery at the woman's expense.

The world grows still. Ava takes the time to disguise what she can behind a fortified, blank wall, denying them a peak at her true feelings or even a glimpse of the thoughts hidden behind each iris.

There are three of them---a woman and two men. The woman has caught Ava's eye before, allebit in Rhodes' peripherals, but nevertheless noticed as the blue speck residing just beyond the threshold of clear vision and just a hazy blur.

A coldness creeps along the woman's spinal column as the woman lifts her dark navy lips in a slight sneer. The muntantess is blue---not like how one turns when faced with a grave sadness or melancholy, but actually, literally blue.

The strange woman's skin is a strikingly dark azure, with risen marks, hard and lustrous like a lizard's scales, dappling various spots along her exposed arms and bordering the majority of the woman's face. What isn't exposed, however, is covered by a striking stark leather combat uniform, with heels the same white hue and accessories to match. It is a paling contrast to her other team-members, who adorn themselves in dark, earthy camoes and blacks.

From what the telepath can tell, the lady in blue and white is also sculpted for stealth and infiltration, having a leaner, more slender build as opposed to the men that keep to either side of her.

The hairs on Ava's skin rise like the hackles on a frightened cat, prickling the pale flesh underneath her uniform with goosebumps upon locking gazes with the mutant. Pale, featureless yellow eye stare back behind a veil of strikingly saturated red strands of hair, piercing the telepath's gaze with a vital stab.

Stryker's booming thunder of a voice suddenly breaks her train of thought, and snaps her eyes away from the blue woman's.

"Everyone, may I be the first to proudly introduce you to the newest member of Team-X," With a sweeping arm, he presents Ava to the wolves. "This is Ava Rhodes, or, as you will all come to know her as, Agent X-F...Vertigo. She has extraordinarily honed telepathic abilities, able to manipulate any aspect of an individual's conscious, subconscious, or the basic functions of the brain! A true credit to her species."

~:"Uh huh.":~ Ava's ears prick, hearing a fragment of a steady stream of cohesive thought from one of the men at the blue woman's side. ~:"Credit to her species my-":

Her eyes narrow, stopping the man's train of thought with a literal mental slap. She ensures the side of his face burns, the sensation of the nerves becoming inflamed...exaggerated but nevertheless brief and deserved.

She studies how his nose wrinkles in disdain as the sting hits. How his brown, unintelligent eyes widen as the impact comes...how his jaw tightens as every nerve jumps up in a stern tense.

Unable to place what happened, he looks around, clueless as to what just struck him so swiftly and without remorse.

A huff of delight leaves the telepath in a soft exhale, enjoying the sight of the other mutant being so clueless and exposing what she theorizes to be a severe lack of basic intelligence.