1963-08-21 - Elusive Illusions Part I
Summary: A file with maps suggests Coney Island is a place of interest for the X-Men. It proves more interesting that it promised.
Related: Missing Pieces Plot
Theme Song: None
kitty piotr vorpal xavier 


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Coney Island New York City
Sun Aug 21, 1963 — Sat Aug 21 18:53:59 2016


*

The beach, boardwalk and amusement paradise that is Coney Island is generally packed on any nice spring, summer or fall day. The Brooklyn beach stretches out into the ocean, further lined inland by dozens of food, carnival and souviner sellers the most famous of which is probably Nathan's Hotdog stand. Rides dot the boardwalk. They include the epic, wooden Cyclone roller coaster; the futuristic globes hanging from a wire known as the Astroland Skyride; and, of course, the towering ferris wheel that looks over Brooklyn and beyond. The scents are funnel cakes, cotton candy, sweat and sunscreen. Occasionally, the ding of someone hitting the bell in the strong man challenge echoes over the stretch of boardwalk.

*


Contents:
Kitty - Dark haired. Wiry. Athletic.
Piotr - 6'6", well-built young man with short dark hair.
log - is currently ON - SCENE IS BEING LOGGED.

*

Exits:
[O] Brooklyn
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*

It's a sunny day at Coney Island, and the beach and amusement park serve as respite for those wanting to have a bit of space of the buzz of the city. The bodies aren't as packed in as some days, but there's no question that Coney Island is busy; it'd be easy to get separated from your friends on such a day as today.

Holding onto her companion's hand, Kitty negotiates the crowd exceedingly well. Of course, phasing helps. When people get just a little too close, she allows pieces of both herself and her companions to become incorporeal when required. While passers by take no notice, for those that don't phase at will on the regular might find this a dizzying practice.

"Wow! I haven't been here in yeeeeears! Hot dogs~ Cotton candy~ Funnel cakes~ Look! It's a dog in a sweater!" there's a sparkly quality to Kitty's admiration of the treats. Not that this is a social call to Coney Island.

One of the many files that the X-Men had recovered seemed to suggest Coney Island to be an important point. But why? Investigation seemed important. And so here they are — kind of packed in.

*

Vorpal has arrived.

*

It has been a while since Piotr has found himself phasing so frequently, but it hasn't taken him very long to readjust to the practice and take it in stride. It is about a thousand times less disorienting than Illyana's teleportation discs, anyway, so watching his arm occasionally pass through someone is a relative breeze. Even if he is not used to being able to walk in a crowd without jostling people. So novel.

"I do not think I have been here before at all," Piotr admits, craning his neck to try and take it all in as they walk. Truthfully, he's more interested in figuring out why the place was so important in the files than in the place as an amusement, but… it is quite a spectacle.

*

%r%rCoincidence is usually the name of the game when Keith is around- as a certain Kitsune and space cop have figured out by now. The young man has no clue about Coney Island being an important place to his hosts, all he really wanted was to get some fresh air and sunlight- and Rabbit Holes are a very handy thing.%r%rShowing remarkable presence of mind ,he has opted to disguise himself. Piotr has most likely not seen Keith in his human guise, butt Kitty has- and she might be able to spot the young man in white T-shirt and shorts making his way down, somewhere around here. Currently, he is finding out how hard it is to hold onto an ice-cream cone while on crutches. He has come -this- close to losing the icy goodness three times, and that's three times too many.%r%r

*

Coincidence is usually the name of the game when Keith is around- as a certain Kitsune and space cop have figured out by now. The young man has no clue about Coney Island being an important place to his hosts, all he really wanted was to get some fresh air and sunlight- and Rabbit Holes are a very handy thing.

Showing remarkable presence of mind ,he has opted to disguise himself. Piotr has most likely not seen Keith in his human guise, butt Kitty has- and she might be able to spot the young man in white T-shirt and shorts making his way down, somewhere around here. Currently, he is finding out how hard it is to hold onto an ice-cream cone while on crutches. He has come -this- close to losing the icy goodness three times, and that's three times too many.

*

"I came here once with my parents when I was a kid. It was only weeks after I'd woke up in the basement after falling through my bed — " Kitty shoots Piotr a one shouldered shrug as if to ask what's a person going to do about that?. " — I hadn't told them. I thought I was sleep walking." Her lips press together tightly as her free hand absently rubs her low back, "I don't suggest trying that trip through the floor. Especially while asleep."

Her cheeks puff out with an exhalation of breath. "I have no idea what we're looking for — " her hazel eyes scan the park. "Except the dog in the sweater! Poor puppy doesn't know it's hot outside~" she bends down to pet a small daschund wearing a Giants jersey. He doesn't have a leash or a collar. She glances around to search for an owner to catch sight of a familiar figure. Her lips quirk, she scoops the puppy with her free hand, and she treads towards Keith. "Heeeey. Good to see the patient vertical!"

*

"I will try not to fall through any floors," Piotr promises in a very solemn voice, trying not to smile as he follows along behind her. "It is alright. I did not tell my family until I broke the tractor," he admits, casting a rather sheepish look off to the side. To be fair, the tractor'd had it coming, but still.

He follows her gaze first to the puppy, then to the not-quite-but-almost familiar man on crutches that she sets off for. "Katya, that is not your dog," he protests weakly, sighing as he hurries along after her. "Someone will be looking for it."

*

Keith turns, albeit slowly, in the direction of Kitty's voice. The redhead is clearly surprised, and then he teases "… are you here to take me back to the sickbay? I just wanted some sugar!" he says with a sheepish grin.

"I had no idea they'd send out the search party. With a fearsome attack dog, to boot." He reaches out to pet the weiner dog, but then seems to think better of it. The dog would probably be able to smell the fact that he wasn't human, and would probably lose its shit.

"Piotr, it's such a surprise to see you here, too!" Totally not. Kitty's here, therefore… "They shouldn't have sent that much muscle, it's not like I'm going to put much of a fight"

*

ROLL: Kitty +rolls 1d5 for a result of: 2

*

"I would think breaking a tractor would be a dead give away," Kitty shoots him a broad grin. "It's definitely one way to tell your family you're exceptional," not different, exceptional. For a moment, Kitty's eyes glaze over distantly, and her lips turn downwards into an odd frown, but with a shake of her head, she's back in the present.

"But he doesn't have an owner! He's all alone and just look at those eyes, don't you just feel like he needs you?" she offers back towards Piotr with a stitch of a grin.

Keith, however, earns a lopsided grin, "Noooot quite. We're here for different reasons. But it is good to see that you're out and about. Medbay isn't the friendliest place for recovery. I hate hospitals. I guess Coney Island gives a lot more… amusement." Her eyebrows lift to punctuate the point.

Her chin drops as she looks at the dog, "He doesn't seem to have an owner, and seems like he needs some help. Someone who cares." She clears her throat. Absently, her eyes flit towards the rides, and for the first time since arriving, she releases Piotr's hand. Puppy still in hand, she takes a couple of absent steps back into he crowd.

*

Any question Piotr might have had about the other man's identity is long gone as soon as he opens his mouth. "Good to see you, Keith," the Russian says wryly, casting a brief glance down when Kitty releases his hand. He tucks both of his hands into his pockets, then, and offers Keith an amused smile. "Do not worry. As she says, we are not here to carry you home," he promises, inclining his head slightly.

Absently, Piotr moves to stand next to Keith. It's partly to be friendly and sociable, but it's also to allow him to keep an alert eye on Kitty as she moves away with the puppy in hand. He's still smiling, but it's clear that he is not entirely there to have fun, a certain tightness around the edge of his eyes.

"How is your leg?" Piotr asides to Keith. His interest is genuine, he's just too paranoid to take his attention off of Kitty, considering why they've come.

*

"Am I interrupting something?" Keith asks, noticing Kitty's absent look and Piotr going all The Bodyguard on her. Not that he'd actually be thinking about that reference because the movie is several decades away, which is a pity, really. It would totally be a movie Keith would convince Kitty and Piotr to go to, because he's evil that way.

"I mean, if it's official business and all," he lowers his voice, "I can just hop away somewhere else and not be in the way."

*

ROLL: Kitty +rolls 1d5 for a result of: 1

*

Arms cradling the dog, Kitty carefully treads the boardwalk, taking care not to bulldoze anyone as she moves. She inhales deeply, virtually tasting the spoils of Coney Island with the breath, but then, there's something else. Her head shakes, just salt. The ocean. Reasonable. She slides to one side of the boardwalk and bends to her haunches, allowing the puppy down, and casting it a fond smile.

Sweater the wonder dog walks along the boardwalk, treading passed one ride and then the next and the next, finally turning the corner towards the ferris wheel.

Kitty's eyebrows draw together. She looks over her shoulder back at Keith and Piotr only to shrug her shoulders and tread after the dog, narrowly missing bodies as she moves.

*

"What interrupting? We came to you," Piotr says with a laugh. "You are not in the way. Though…" He straightens up a bit when Kitty begins to follow after the dog, his brow furrowing in concern. "…it is official, da. We should not let her out of sight," he murmurs, and poor Keith gets a light pat on the arm — the universally-accepted Guy Gesture for 'come on, let's go' — before the Russian starts after Kitty. He'll just make a path through the crowd for Keith and his crutches by being enormous.

*

Xavier has arrived.

*

Keith quickly falls into step (ok, hop) behind Piotr, feeling like a tiny skiff riding on the wake of an enormous icebreaker. "And what part of official business includes being led around by a dog? Timmy fell down the well again?" he quips, trying to get rid of the ice-cream as soon as possible so as to be able to pay full attention at whatever it was they were supposed to be doing.

"I may be injured, but you can still count on my ta-" oh, the pain… "aaaaah… Ooooh…. Oww… goddamnit. Like icicle of pure pain being jabbed through my palate…" he opens his mouth, trying to get rid of the feeling that his brain was about to split in twain and leak out of his ears. "OH this is horrible! Why would anyone want to do this to themselves! UUUNGH!"

He pauses and licks at the ice-cream again.

Lick. Licklicklicklickclick…

*

Kitty rounds the corner, and nothing seems amiss. Just the end of the dock. Her nose wrinkles, however, as she realizes the wonder dog has disappeared. Her eyes narrow into slits and her feet pace about the creaky wooden planks underfoot. The ferris wheel, and its line is regarded with a comical smirk, and she leans over the edge of the boardwalk to peer at the water.

No sign of the dog.

She frowns. "Hey," she tries to get the attention of one of the kids in line, "I think I lost a dog — " that was never actually hers. " — he was walking this way. Giants sweater."

The kid, for his part, gives Kitty a skeptical once over, but doesn't answer.

*

"That, I am not sure of," Piotr admits to Keith, keeping his eyes on Kitty. One advantage of being so tall is it's very possible for him to track her even through this crowd. "But even if it is just diversion, I cannot be too upset —"

And then Piotr takes his eyes off of Kitty. He looks over his shoulder when Keith makes swears, face laced with very alert concern right up until he realizes the cause. He practically sags in relief. "You have never had ice cream headache before?" he asks with an odd, affectionate grin, looking ahead again.

To discover Kitty is no longer in sight, having rounded the corner when he looked away. Because of course she did.

"Katya?"

*

Charles Xavier's dress shoes echo oddly off the wood of the pier as he walks along. By pure happenstance, he's in the same area as several of his students. Even in an attempt to get away from the Institute for an afternoon leads to him finding some of his students out and about. It strikes him as though it's a metaphor of some sort.

But not that it's a bad thing. This close to the school year, Xavier always has a sense of longing for getting back into the swing of things. He smiles as he can see Piotr a full head taller than anyone near him. "Hello!" he exclaims as he walks over toward the Russian.

*

Puzzled, and somewhat determined to find what she'd just lost, Kitty walks down the line for the ferris wheel, peering at the ground as she does so. Her eyebrows furrow tighter and, when she reaches the end, she still comes up empty. With another twist of her lips, her head shakes and she turns on her heel, heading back down the boardwalk from whence she came.

"I lost it," she murmurs quietly.

And within moments, she's in sight again, shrugging her shoulders at her companions. "I don't know where he went. One minute I see him and the next — " A soft bark has her look over her shoulder again, and her eyes light up. She pivots on her heel back towards the end of the pier.

*

Of all the faces Piotr expected to see at Coney Island, he'd be lying if the Professor's was one of them. He blinks and turns when he hears the familiar voice calling his name and cracks a relieved smile, lifting a hand to wave. "Professor! Thank goodness. I just lost sight of —"

Of Kitty, who reappears as mysteriously as she had vanished from sight. Good. Piotr is too young for an ulcer. "There you are. I thought I had lost… you?" He blinks when Kitty pivots away and this time, he's a bit quicker about trying to keep up, with a very brief look of apology given to Keith and Charles. He isn't trying to be rude. "Katya! The dog is fine!"

*

Keith isn't fast enough to keep up, what with his crutches and the injury. Still, he makes a remarkably brave attempt anyways, hopping like crazy but not making much of a headway since he has lost the advantage of being right behind the human icebreaker Piotr.

He turns to face the Professor and blinks, "Oh… it's the Prof. Hello!" he waves feebly. He's in his human illusion, but Charles will no doubt have no problem sensing the walking psychic LSD that his psyche is and match it up with the corresponding person. "Fancy seeing you here. Don't mind me, I'm just trailing behind in the wake of the confusion."

In other words, his life as usual.

He tries t keep, again, like the steadfast tin soldier. Hop hop hop.

*

"You and me both, Keith," answers the Professor as his head turns towards Piotr. He's noticed that Kitty seems to be searching for something, but something about the tall Russian seems to be off. Almost as if this is some sort of mission rather than a stroll. What it could be on about, the Professor does not know.

"Is everything alright, Piotr?"

*

ROLL: Kitty +rolls 1d2 for a result of: 1

*

"I hear it!" Kitty objects back over her shoulder. Her eyes scan the pier again. Once again come up empty. "I'll just be — " her teeth toy at her bottom lip and she's left facing the same line of people who were completely unhelpful only moments earlier. She glowers and traipses down the line once again. Her paces quicken as she moves, eyes still training on the ground in front of her.

Another soft bark urges her forward towards the end of the boardwalk that she doesn't seem to see.

*

Piotr is quite preoccupied with trying to keep up with Kitty without the benefit of her phasing him through the crowd. Even so, he calls a simple, worried-sounding "One of the files," back towards Charles, hoping that is explanation enough. At least, for the moment. He can elaborate when there are fewer ears.

Normally, Piotr would slow down to help Keith keep up with him, but something feels… wrong. Wrong enough that he actually earns a couple of irritated comments from people he squeezes past in his rush to keep up with Kitty.

He puts on a burst of speed when he realizes Kitty is rapidly running out of boardwalk, hurriedly making a grab for one of her hands. His "<Careful!>" comes out in Russian, and he doesn't even realize it.

*

Keith frowns and stops dead on his feet. Crutches. "Why isn't she…?"

Keith doesn't want to wait for the answer of why is Kitty not stopping. Instead, he focuses while keeping the scene well within his line of sight. If Kitty wasn't going to stop, he hoped he could be fast enough to create a Rabbit Hole under her and deposit her back on the boardwalk. "This is getting curioser and-" he realizes what he's saying and, to avoid any potential reprimand from Charles, he finishes ".. weirder."

*

"Stop."

Charles brings two fingers up to his temple as he sends a powerful command to Kitty in hopes of stopping her from going clear off the Boardwalk into who knows where.

Piotr's mention of the files is something Xavier puts behind for now, with stranger things going on. Or curious things, as Keith would say.

*

The professor's single word stops Kitty in her tracks and actually draws attention to the world beneath her feet — or what would've been a lack thereof. It's dizzying to get real perspective on the world, so it's fortunate that Piotr grasps one of her hands, offering some stability as she now stares at the world below.

There's no dog barking. No figure. Just the water ahead that she could've sworn was a good twenty feet further away.

*

Piotr doesn't know why Kitty has stopped, only that she has. Crisis averted. Ish. Something still feels wrong — this isn't like her at all, he's certain. He casts a worried look back the way he came towards Charles and Keith, brow furrowed.

"Are you alright?" he asks Kitty, keeping hold of her hand as he leans over to try and get a look at her face.

*

"Kitty? What happened?" Keith asks,finally catching up to them only because they were now stationary. It was far better than them being stationery, because Piotr would take a pretty big envelope to fit into, alright. And postage would be one hell of an expense. "You were running after something but there wasn't really…" he trails off, realizing that Kitty perhaps should face only one line of inquiry at once- and Piotr seems to have called dibs. So, instead, he shuts up and leans on his crutches, widening his sphere attention in the unlikely case that he might detect a clue or a hint of what might have caused Kitty's… moment of distraction.

*

Charles stops farther up on the Boardwalk and allowing Piotr to meet Kitty at the edge. The breeze from the sea blows his brown hair whimsically, but his blue eyes look intense and concerned as he watches the pair in hopes of getting some more information about what in the world just happened.

*

As confused as anyone, Kitty takes a step back from the edge, silently grateful for a hand for stability, not that she normally needs it. Her eyes blink hard and she shakes her head once, much like someone might shake an etch a sketch to create a new picture. "I… I think so?" she finally answers Piotr's question. Keith's warrant vague arching of her eyebrows, "There was a dog in a sweater — " her eyebrows furrow tightly as she attempts to figure out why it was so imminently important to find said dog. She can't.

Her head turns back to the other side of the boardwalk. "Have you ever had something seem ridiculously important until it just wasn't?" She looks towards Charles and then, seemingly seeing him for the first time here, "Professor? When did you get here?"

*

ROLL: Piotr +rolls 1d3 for a result of: 2

*

ROLL: Vorpal +rolls 1d3 for a result of: 3

*

ROLL: Xavier +rolls 1d3 for a result of: 1

*

Piotr nods in agreement with Keith, keeping his attention on Kitty. The large man is not bothering to hide how concerned he is about all of this. Considering why they've come to Coney Island, it's probably no surprise. "You almost went right off the —"

The Russian's words abruptly cut off and he straightens up, casting a very alert look around the pier. That is a posture Kitty and Charles have definitely seen before — that's not Piotr so much as it is Colossus. "Where is it coming from?" he mutters worriedly to himself, releasing Kitty's hand so that he can turn in place. Whatever he hears, it isn't actually there. And he is also completely convinced that he hears it.

*

"…. where is what coming from?" Keith cuts in, frowning. His ears swivel under his disguise, "I hear people. The rides. The water. And someone is trying to sing "Sugar Shack" badly, off-key, and they keep forgetting the words." Hey, it helps to have rather acute hearing. "It can't be the singing that's bothering you. You're not musical. It's one of the good things about you."

He looks at the Professor, "… maybe they both had Jean's ratatouille." In a moment of sheer desperation, he had a helping of it when he was hungry enough. The next eight hours were spent feeling as if the bed was going to swallow him.

*

Charles tilts his head towards Kitty, "Just arrived, I am afraid. It seems as if I would have been able to help had I arrived sooner."

As Keith and Piotr begin to act oddly, Charles feels something attempt to slither its way into his mind. At first he wants to notify his friends of the telepath's presence, but it occurs to him that there is an avenue, that by using more stealth, may illicit a better outcome. Rather than block this being out, he attempts to draw them in, deeper and deeper. To catch them in a mind trap along the astral plane while pulling as much information about them as he can. He projects the image of an island in the middle of the ocean. Hot, arid, with a lone palm tree and blue as far as the eye can see.

*

ROLL: Kitty +rolls 1d3 for a result of: 3

*

"But I didn't," Kitty is quick to assert at Piotr's thought about her walking into the water. Not that she had anything to do with not going off the edge. No, she was convinced there was plenty of room.

Instinctively, she lifts a hand to stop Piotr from jumping into action. Her eyes shift at Keith's questions, and her jaw tightens considerably. "I don't hear anything — " her eyes narrow and she attempts to catch Piotr's gaze. "Pete?" She glances towards the Professor and then back to Keith. "Relax, everything is okay." Ish.

Meanwhile, the Professor indeed draws the telepath into his mind, attempting to find something to exploit. While the others hadn't felt the presence, both curiosity and determination brings a veiled figure to the island. With the presence safely tucked into the mind of the professor, it retreats from the minds of the others.

*

The fact that Keith does not seem to hear whatever Piotr does doesn't stop the Russian from continuing to look around, though it does introduce a flicker of doubt to his face. "They need help," he notes distractedly, but Kitty's hand is enough to root him in place.

He blinks once, hard, when the presence retreats. It takes Piotr a moment before he's shaken the disorientation enough to focus on Kitty, and after a moment of silence, he quietly clicks his tongue.

"I think we read the map correctly," Piotr grumbles, rubbing his forehead and glancing towards Charles.

*

Keith looks from Kitty to Piotr and sighs, rubbing his forehead. "Has the world always been this mad and I've just been too caught up in myself to notice? Big guy, you okay?" he reaches out to put a hand on Piotr's arm. "Both of you are starting to worry me and I'm wondering whether or not I should just shove you in the hole and bring you home."

He pauses. "I mean, bring you to your home," he clarifies, looking uncomfortable. "… should I, Professor?" he turns to look at Charles.

*

As Piotr and Keith both look to the Professor, Charles is standing vacantly. Normally he can be cognizant of the world around him while doing these sorts of things. Normally, these sorts of things are easy. He's taking no chances, however. Besides, if someone wants to peg him, he's got a giant Russian to come to his rescue.

In his mind, Charles appears next to the shadowy figure with an offer of a glass of scotch. "Hello," he says cheerfully from behind a scrambled face. "I do not get many visitors here. Let us have a chat, shall we?"

Meanwhile, Xavier is attempting to shut down the motor functions of his adversary before he will start on slicing and dicing at the mind. Symbolically, of course.

*

As the telepath becomes more entrapped in the island, stuck in the Professor's mind, the veil begins to collapse, and one figure slowly morphs into two. And then four. And finally five. Darkness still conceals the quintet, but their minds struggle to maintain some semblance of strength.

While Charles can't get a good look at them, he certainly can sense a singular purpose between them. But the purpose isn't spoken, merely known. "Hello," the hive seems to reply from their still darkened identities. "No chats."

"Release us," while many talk, their minds speak in unity; act in unity. The figures physically hold hands on the island, opting to remain together and strong. Letting go would most definitely grant Charles a foothold — which he has already managed without much effort.

*

When Piotr seems to return to some sense of prescience, Kitty's shoots him a smile. "You're okay," she asserts quietly. "You're okay," she repeats. But her attention on Piotr is short-lived. Keith, instead garners her attention. "It's not us. We're not — it wasn't the ratatouille," which Kitty definitely did not eat. "But it's real."

"Professor?" with Charles seemingly vacant, Kitty's hand finally lowers from Piotr's chest, seemingly having forgotten it was still resting there. She turns towards Xavier, and stares at him. Her jaw begins to work around a plan, but nothing comes easily. "I don't know enough. If we move him would that be bad? Like… do you think we'd hurt him?"

*

_ _ _

In his mind, Charles chuckles and sets the glass down upon the sand, where it melts away in a fissure within his idea. "Oh," he mocks. "You are very strong, for certain. Although you let me know there were many of you. Your first mistake."

He trudges along in the sand barefoot, with the fabric of his linen pants pulled up. Hand pulled from the pocket he begins to recite a sing-song choosing nursery rhyme as he points to each of them in turn.

"Hickery, Pickery, pease, scon.
Where will this young man, gang?
He shall go East. He shall go West.
He will go to the crow's nest.
Hickery. Pickery. Hickery. Pickery."

He lands on one towards the middle and smiles. He reaches out to touch their forehead. "I would not let go, were I you." He gives a curt smile, and then sends a telepathic blast towards the one of his choosing, attempting to knock them out cold.

_ _ _

*

Piotr offers Keith a wry smile. "I am fine," he promises him, reaching up to give the hand on his arm a reassuring pat. "Would you believe this is not strangest thing that has ever happened to us?" he asks lightly, with a tip of his chin to indicate Kitty.

He runs a hand back over his hair and settles his gaze onto the Professor, lips quirking in thought. "I do not think it would hurt him," Piotr says slowly. "But I would worry about distracting him."

*

Keith now looks at the Professor. He hadn't caught on to the fact that he was 'out' at the moment. He looks on and huhs, "The Duchess had that look on her face once, when I replaced the pepper with…" he trails off. "Actually I don't think I'm allowed to tell that story ever again. So I guess you had people fiddle-de-deeing with your minds, then?" that's what he assumes, anyways, since the Professor seems to have taken the reins of things. "I wonder why I couldn't hear… whatever it was you guys felt."

*

Under the boardwalk, not in the water, a blood curdling scream emits, echoing into the ocean and up through the ferris wheel. And, in the blink of an eye, an unusual silence draws across Coney Island — save for a very feminine scream emitting. And the scream grants great pause across the area.

——
Inside Charles' mind, while the middle telepath isn't knocked out cold, perhaps thanks to its comrades, it is in obvious agony as it clutches to its compatriots. It crumples to its knees, and oddly, the others seem to follow suit. Rather than letting one take the hit, all make the choice. "Release us," they kneel in the sand, getting crushed beneath the weight of the psychic offensive.

——

Multiple screams join the single. And people begin to rush about the area, seemingly believing some awful thing has taken place. The faint sound of sirens can be heard rolling in from the distance.

*

"I don't know," Kitty offers back towards Keith and then grants a nod back to Piotr, "Focus does seem like a problem." But then bedlam starts to break out around them as five people seem to scream in unison. People are making haste to avoid some sort of assault or attack as it occurs.

"…" Kitty looks towards Keith and nods, "We should go — " even as the words escape her mouth, she reaches out for the professor, making him intangible as there's a bit of a mad rush to leave the area.

*

_ _ _ _

"No," Charles says simply. "You attempt to harm one of my friends. My family. And you think your insistence will force my hand? Should I wish it I could snuff all five of you miserable out quicker than you blew out your last birthday candle." Charles' face has gone from mocking, to serious, and now intense. "You will tell me who you are, and what you want with my friends. You will tell me immediately or your bowels, which I am about to release, will be the least of your concerns."

_ _ _ _

*

Okay. This time, Piotr knows he heard something. Otherwise there would not be a panic. He gives Kitty and Keith a quick look before he quickly rushes to the edge of the pier. Without hesitation, he drops down onto his hands and knees, grasping the edge tightly so that he can lean over and peek under the boardwalk for the source of the screaming.

Whatever he sees, it causes Piotr's grip on the edge to go white-knuckle tight. He hesitates, clearly torn, before pushing himself back up with a quiet swear and backing away.

*

—-

"Your friends, your family," the voices repeat back to Charles, "will be ours." But something changes even in Charles' mind. One at a time, the telepaths' veil yields, and their minds go limp. One at a time, each is exposed identical to the last. Young women. Each identical to the last. Unconscious within Xavier's consciousness.
—-

The screaming ceases in the waking world. Halted. Like someone hit mute.

*

_ _ _ _ _

"I do not doubt that you believe that," Xavier says as he kneels into the sand "But you will do so over my dead body."

He reaches out, but rather than two hands, he now has five arms that jut out from his white dress shirt and that reach down to the heads of the fallen girls. He sifts through their minds, their memories, pulling any information he can.

_ _ _ _ _

"I think I would like to go home now," Xavier says to Piotr, Kitty, and Keith. "And I do not believe there is much time to waste."

*

"And that is not the least beat unsettling," Keith comments, his eyes going slightly wide at the screaming. For a moment he considers doing what Piotr is doing and taking a peek under the boardwalk, but he's not exactly at his most mobile at the moment. Even if Eito's healing spell did speed up his recovery quite a bit, it didn't completely heal him.

Ultimately, though, curiosity is too powerful a force for him to resist. The fact that people are rushing to get out is also another factor into what he decides to do…

He sets the crutches down by the edge and grasps it, dropping off and holding onto the edge. He's good enough of a gymnast to pull it off, and he has the stamina to keep at it for a bit, too.

What he sees, though, almost makes him lose his grip- he quickly scrambles and pulls himself up, not caring about the shooting pain that almost knocks his breath out of his lungs.

"Holy shit holy shit holy shit get in NOW!" he calls out, holding out a hand and creating a Rabbit Hole right then and there- it's unfocused and it's not a direct hole to the Medbay. It connects somewhere near the lake, it's the best he can come up with, with the scare he has just gotten.

"Get in! Get in now! I'll come after you!" he says, because he needs to make sure nobody else follows.

*

—-

What Xavier finds isn't likely what he expects.

The girls all have the EXACT same memories. Sisters, it would seem. And the memories are of some insane government facility. School, much like some strange type of brainwashing in a very white facility lingers.

And, much like the X-Men had seen recently, the girls walked between and around bodies. Rows and rows of bodies hooked into IVs.

There's bound to be more with greater searching, but the surface images are easy enough to understand.
—-

*

Kitty's eyes flit between the pair. One, twice, and then again. She swallows hard, shakes her head, and slowly releases the professor, allowing him corporeality once again. There's a glance towards him — a silent instruction to keep an eye — and then Kitty Pryde disappears into the boardwalk.

*

The sight isn't one that Kitty hadn't been expecting. Five large men dressed in black dragging five blonde unconscious girls away from the scene. And, whether smart or not, she calls out, "S-stop!"

Two of the men attempt to dispense of the brunette and wield guns, opting to open fire at the ghost girl who doesn't really seem to be there. And as they fire, Kitty runs forward, determined to save the poor innocent-looking girls.

*

TO BE CONTINUED…

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