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The quiet, peaceful afternoon, complete with sunshine, birds chirping, and grass rustling makes Xavier's a picturesque Westchester destination today. The serene landscape of the gardens, smattered with students enjoying the last light of the day creates a deep, lasting, sense of peace that blankets the neighbourhood.
Students sit amongst the gardens, playing in the greenery before their retreats to bed, and the last symbols of summer grant a measure of comfort and peace through the bright painted colours of orange, gold, and yellow that spread across the evening sky.
CRASH
Breaking glass follows a very large body thrown through the West windows that peek out onto the garden. Shards fly, and students back up to avoid being pelted by glass pieces spraying like water from a faucet.
The body of a very large Russian flies through the window, followed by a much smaller brunette, whose leg cuts the same course back towards Piotr before she bounces backwards on a single handspring once again towards the mansion. Whatever course she's on, Piotr is just collateral damage in Kitty's path.
Normally, Piotr's departures from the second floor are much more graceful and voluntary than this. And even on those occasions where his exits are more along these lines — they have happened before and will, he is sure, happen again — there is usually one key difference:
There is no metal covering his skin. When Piotr goes head-first through the window, he is flesh and blood.
And when Piotr comes crashing down onto the grass, flat on his back and covered in small bloody scrapes, he remains so, his teeth grit together as the impact knocks the air from his lungs.
Even so, the big man scrambles to get back to his feet, waving off the assistance of another student as he immediately starts stumbling off after Kitty. He manages to get out two short, pained sentences: "Do not hurt her! Find the Professor!"
*
It doesn't take too long for Xavier to run from around the corner with a student in tow. His face is full of concern as he searches out with his eyes trying to figure out what in the world is going wrong. First, to Piotr.
"Are you alright?" he asks, reaching out to put a hand on the shoulder of the larger man. "What is going on?"
*
Inside the school, Kitty runs through the dorm in the second floor, giving no attention or care into whose room she runs in and out of. Her eyes, empty, lifeless, and possessed stare through each room, not giving attention to anyone inside them. Student screams suggest upset upstairs. If the goal was secrecy and stealth, Miss Pryde has botched her mission objective.
*
For a man who just took a header out of a second story window, Piotr looks remarkably okay. Battered and a bit bloody, yes, but he's on his feet and coherent enough to look extremely relieved when Charles catches up to him.
"She is not herself," Piotr says hurriedly, pointing in the direction Kitty has run off in. "Katya needs help, Professor. Please." The Russian's mind is an absolute maelstrom of panic and guilt — for whatever reason, he feels absolutely responsible for what is happening right now.
*
"I understand, Piotr," Xavier says calmly. He closes his eyes and brings the hand upon the Russian's shoulder up towards his head before pressing two fingers against his temple.
Xavier stretches out his thoughts and mind, searching for Kitty. He doesn't play nice, or stop for niceties. He aims to figure out what's happening straight away.
*
What Xavier finds is an odd mess of Kitty's mind — closer to a computer than an actual mind. A white, ever winding maze separates Kitty's actions from her more cognizant self — almost like she's been cut off from her own motor function and control. The barrier isn't wholly insurmountable, but it is holding her prisoner apart from action.
Yet even tucked away behind whatever thing seems to enclose her, the professor can can hear Kitty's muffled yelling at herself within the space of her mind, "Stop! Just stop!!! STOP!" but muscles don't respond. Her brain, for whatever reason, is not her own. Compulsion continues to drive the ghost girl in whatever mission seems to have taken hold.
Inside the house, she vanishes through the second floor, down to the main level.
*
The Professor can feel just how tense Piotr's muscles are beneath his hand, but that contact is all that's required to keep him still at Xavier's side. He wants to be chasing after Kitty, to do something to help… but his trust in Xavier is absolute.
Instead of rushing off after her, Piotr remains where he is. One hand falls to rest on the headmaster's shoulder. Quietly, the Russian drops his chin and buries his face in his other hand. And waits.
*
Still with his eyes closed, Xavier understands now how difficult a situation this is both for these two and for himself. He must work quickly and effectively or who knows how this might end.
He reaches into her mind and does his best to gain control of her motor functions. According to her wishes, he tries to make her stop running and just stay still for a second while he tries to figure out what's happening to her.
*
Kitty's body freezes and Xavier can feel her relief when she comes to a stop. Her motor function still is not her own, but it good that things have frozen for the time being. Her mind represents a large maze — windy, confusing, and locked down. As Xavier digs deeper, however, a single song pings over her mind: Brahm's lullaby.
The maze, white and deep twists in large square shapes, but pursuing it to its logical centre gives a treasure of sorts. Kitty rests there in the centre, tied to a chair, within her own brain. And when the professor finds her, she's already trembling with tears running down her cheeks, "Something is wrong… professor… something is wrong… I don't know what's wrong… something…"
Over the maze lay very explicit instructions in a very barky, authoritative voice that neither Xavier or Kitty know, "CLIII, report back to the field site." Wherever that may be.
*
"It was the music box," Piotr says quietly, dropping the hand from his face and staring dully towards the mansion's foyer. He's keeping his words quiet in an attempt not to disrupt Xavier's focus, but the words need to come out. "I should have destroyed it the moment we knew her family did not send it. Before we even left the store with it."
*
"Shhh, Kitty. I have you." Xavier gives a slight turn of his head. "And I will not let any harm come to you." When the voice they do not recognize sounds out, the Professor raises each of his arms and then flays them out dramatically as he tries to mentally knock down all of the walls of the maze that have been put up.
Meanwhile, in our realm, he stands next to Piotr, eyes still closed. "What music box?"
*
Kitty remains still in the waking world. Completely still. But the emptiness in her eyes remains. There's no question Kitty Pryde was not helming her own body. Like a mannequin, she stands in place.
Deep within the recesses of her mind, she stares at the walls that seem to divide her from everything else. Her head lifts at the voice. "That's not my name…" she murmurs in reaction. Tears continue to stream down her cheeks and she takes a deep breath, heeding Xavier's reassurance. She nods once.
Slowly, one at a time, each of the walls falls at Xavier's beckoning. There's an obvious echo behind each, images that Kitty's mind can't remember — like someone had taken them, rather sloppily, at that.
*
"It is upstairs," Piotr tells the Professor. "We picked it up at the Macy's. She thought her parents had sent it, but it came from Ohio and I was…" His mouth twitches, jaw clenching. "…suspicious. I thought the people who took her might have sent it." Slowly, he draws in a breath. "Do you want me to fetch it?"
*
"Please," Xavier says with a nod. "Perhaps it has triggered something in her brain. A flipped switch that is forcing her to act in this way."
Xavier kneels down in Kitty's mind to undo her bonds that keep her to the chair. "Katherine, I need you to walk me through this. Tell me anything you can think of. Anything you remember. Even from these last few moments."
*
There's incredible relief that washes over Kitty as the maze is dismantled and her hands are unbound. She stretches her wrists and stands up in the space that is her mind. "I saw it. I saw everything. Oh god… is Pete okay?!" her eyes widen and her cheeks puff out with breath.
"I… couldn't do anything." Her eyes clamp shut and her face reddens. "I was kissing Piotr and then I wasn't and I couldn't do anything… like the world stopped… entirely… there was this song. The one that parents always use for trying to put kids to sleep. And I — " her eyebrows draw together. "I froze. Entirely. Until I didn't. I was stuck. I felt stuck. Here." Her eyes flit upwards. "But I could see it. I couldn't do anything, but I could see it. Like it was happening in front of rather than to me. Rather than /by me. And CLIII kept being called back to the field site. I don't know what that means…"
Her lips twist to the side. "But I don't understand. I don't understand any of it."
*
'Please' is all Piotr needs to hear. He gives a crisp nod, pats the professor's shoulder, and then he's hurrying his way back into the mansion. Through the doors this time, and with a slight limp now that the initial burst of adrenaline has begun to wear off.
Of course, in order to reach the stairs, he has to pass Kitty where she stands frozen in the hall. Piotr fights a worried frown and limps his way towards the stairs, hesitating briefly on his way past before placing a very light hand against her shoulder. He doesn't know what's going on in her head, how aware she may or may not be, but she still gets a small smile from the slightly bloodied man before he continues on up the stairs.
*
"It would appear to me that whoever did this to you has implanted some call and response feature in their control over you. At least, that is my hypothesis. In any event, it is imperative that we go through the recesses of your mind and begin to clean it out of any trojan horses we may find." He pauses, "Kitty, I should warn you that I am most uncomfortable with the invasive nature of what I am about to do. I will need to scan your mind completely."
*
Moira has connected.
*
The Kitty passed in the hall remains frozen in time and space, reactionless to Piotr's touch. Inside her mind, however, Kitty presses her hands to her face. "Oh good… I threw him out a window…" She inhales a sharp breath as she looks back to Xavier. Her head ducks into a small nod. "I… okay," she offers quietly. "Do it. I don't… this was awful…" she murmurs quietly.
It takes time to go through Kitty's memories. Quickly, easily he can see that the last few weeks have been rather odd. He can see the events as they unfolded with the tinny music sound that led to the events presently at work.
But as he goes back further, scanning each of Kitty's minds, thoughts, and ideas, he comes back to a time over a month ago — before she'd returned. The song, Brahm's lullaby plays across the speaker of a very white room. The man standing askew to Kitty barks orders at a nearby assistant in a white lab coat, "CLIII should be ready soon." He runs a hand over his face and turns his attention to a quintet of small blonde young women behind him and a nearly bald waif looking one behind them. "X-23, XIV-1-5, we are moving soon. 153 is no longer defective. Should be safe to move soon."
*
Xavier shrugs his shoulders and smiles at Kitty. "He seemed okay." As okay as someone can be flying out a second story window, but whatever. "I am of the belief that the box acts as some sort of trigger. I am not sure if it has something to do with hypnosis, or if there is a biological or mechanical reason for the change." Xavier's deep probing continues in Kitty's mind as he's attempting to find any traps or triggers that might have been placed there through psychology.
*
A more expedient and thorough seeking of Kitty's mind identifies three separate triggers — all put in through the use of hypnosis and psychological conditioning rather than mechanical placement of any sort. The lullaby is the first of the three — coded to have a return to base effect. The second, a simple phrase, seems to have a rather different effect.
Kitty, did you check the mail? earns a programmed response: I'm sorry. I'll do that now, and prompt erasure of a conversation — a reboot of sorts. The last, You should have a rest with its response Sleep would do me well seems to be a suggestion prior to receiving some kind of other instructions.
*
The faint tones of Brahm's Lullaby are carried to Charles' ears — but not from inside the mansion.
There is a muffled WHUD and the sound of crushed glass shards as Piotr takes a second, far more deliberate trip through the second floor window, his body encased in steel precisely as long as it takes to safely land on the ground. By the time he's returned to Charles' side with the still-active music box in his slightly trembling hands, he is once again flesh and blood.
*
"Just a moment, Kitty."
Xavier open his eyes to inspect the box, looking for any signs that it might hold any more clues to it. Moments later he's back in Kitty's head and beginning to work. Kitty will visualize his efforts as Charles walking a vacuum cleaner back and forth in the corners of her mind as he tries to remove the traps.
*
The traps are stubborn, but they give in. Slowly. One at a time each seems to be vacuumed up by Charles' efforts. There's a flicker of a smile at Charles' efforts and Kitty steps around her mind. She shoots Charles a grateful smile and actually watches what he's doing. There's a hint of redness in her cheeks when she sheepishly directs her gaze to her feet, all too aware that Charles now has a good sense of everything that's transpired over the last while. For a moment, she almost apologizes for her thoughts about the colour of the library (which SURELY he knows now), but instead, she just settles on, "Thank you, professor." And she genuinely means it.
*
"I would very much like to destroy this now," Piotr quietly informs the professor as he examines the music box, his jaw tightly clenched. He does not, however, move to do anything at all to the music box without permission — not even try to find a way of silencing the music.
*
Xavier nods, "It is my pleasure. I hope you understand that I have not vacuumed since I was 8 and our maid was on holiday." Charles gives her a wink and begins to show her out of the darkness of her own mind-recesses. "Enjoy that while it lasts."
By the time Kitty starts to come to, Xavier is standing with her and Piotr, back in the Mansion, and with the box in tow. "You may, Piotr," Xavier says with a shrug after the Russian states his desire to destroy the box. "I do not believe there is anything about the box at all. It has more to do with what was in her mind. Pity too." Xavier looks at it with a tilted head. "Seems a nice box, as it were."
*
Moira has disconnected.
*
There's a weird return to reanimation that has Kitty oddly shy. At least for a few beats before she's fussing over the bloodied nicks along Piotr's face. Well, as much as she can thanks to their vast height difference.
The box itself, however, even at the comment, earns Kitty's ire. Like something that should never be touched, she actually shies away from the box, merely shaking her head. "I don't ever want to see that thing again," her arms draw around her in a tight hug. "Even if there's nothing wrong with it, if I ever hear that song again, it'll be too soon."
*
Permission from Xavier and a reaction like that from Kitty? Yeah. Piotr doesn't even hesitate before he drops the music box to the ground.
In the time it takes him to lift a foot, he has once again become encased in steel for the very emphatic stomp he delivers to the music box. When he said he wanted to destroy it, he very, very much meant it.
Drawing in a deep breath, Piotr offers the professor a very tight smile. "…thank you. I am sorry about the window."
*
"Window? You should have seen what Sam did to the lawn," Xavier says as his eyebrows flash at both of them and he begins to walk away. "I"ll call someone in the morning. Until then, think of it as a skylight!"