1963-11-07 - Now or Never
Summary: Aliens, riots, and choices to make for mutantkind.
Related: N/A
Theme Song: None
xavier rogue 


Xavier has arrived.

*

It's afternoon at the Institute, and Charles Xavier is in his office, absorbed in lesson plan reviews. So a fairly average day, for a pleasant change.

*

An average day, and a not so average woman in a borrowed leather jacket, last seen on Akihiro, and a burnt, shredded minidress walks through. Somehow her hair isn't burnt, but her fair skin is scratched up. She knocks on the door of the office and waits. Scarlett has seen better days.

*

Just as she raises her hand to knock on the door it's opened by the Professor in question, a stack of papers in one hand. He gestures with his free hand, offering a, "Please, come in."

*

The door opens, and reveals the wreckage of a formerly kempt young woman. Her braids, at least, are in fairly decent condition, falling down her back in a fine ladder completely and utterly foreign to the modern eye. They were popular possibly seven centuries ago. The jacket might be a bit scraped up and possibly even bloodied, nothing series. She herself has a smattering of wounds visible, abrasions to knees and hands, the back of her calves, at least given the fact she's tossed her habitual leggings as a lost cause. Concerning, given every dossier on Scarlett's abilities shows her to be rather difficult to damage and something that scratches her might fully delimb another human. The faint spirals of rising bruises and a nasty burn on her forearm is mostly covered, and her dress would be superb on any dystopian film set. Supposing, of course, dystopian is an emerging genre in the eyes of a director.

"Professor," she murmurs, always polite. Unapologetic about her concern for manners, she dips her head and probably would in the event of a nuclear explosion. "It has been some time, I know. However, you might well be concerned by the events in Times Square. I was there. The media may take my identity public, and so I would prefer to warn you before the news comes the other way around." Plus it looks like she walked through the outer circle of Hell, but no worries.

*

"Good god," Xavier says, taking in her battered appearance. "Here, you'd best sit down." he says, ushering her over to one of the chairs in the office. He soon crosses over to a side table where there is a pitcher of water and some glasses, pouring one out with a furrowed brow. "I think perhaps you'd better start at the beginning."

*

"Things could be worse, all considered," the redhead murmurs, pulling the jacket around her tighter. She settles into the chair carefully, mindful of damage done to the back of her legs. The minidress doesn't exactly give superlative coverage, and in her current state, she's a time bomb. All the more reason to be exceptionally careful. "The simpler matter. A bakery in Greenwich Village exploded this morning after several men and a woman attacked a mercenary there. One shot me point blank repeatedly." That explains bulletholes in her burnt orange dress. "I disarmed and subdued him. Another person murdered him, before the building went up in flames. I am unsure if it was an explosive, but it seems more likely an accident. The owner is a woman in her sixties or more, and displayed possible mutant ability. She is disoriented but sweet, a baker."

*

The glass of water is soon proffered to Rogue. Xavier gives a nod, clearly attentive. "I'd like to hear more about this baker, but it sounds as if you have another urgent matter to relate?"

*

The water she takes, carefully avoiding Xavier's hands. Nothing might be more embarrassing than explaining how she managed to absorb a whisper of his psychic power on her first return to the Institute since aliens started making headline news. "Thank you," she murmurs, her voice soft and tired, its usual lilt suppressed by an effort. "The baker is a woman… I have her card at home. She was generous and kind to me, and made a point not to upset another mutant. A woman who has a tiger's form, practices magic, an associate if not a friend. That alone commends her."

All said and done, she sips the water, her fingernails direly in need of a manicure. Truly the world has gone to hell in a handbasket. "You have heard the news about the supposed alien in Times Square? One that fell out of a building?"

*

"Yes, I was aware." Xavier says with a short smile. "Though I know little more than what was in the papers at the moment."

*

"I attended the rally. I listened to the speakers speaking out for peace and reconciliation between humanity's various factions." Scarlett flicks her fingers as she captures a dewdrop of water, watching it spill over her skin in a tear track. "A young politician, Bernard Sanders, the Dalai Lama of Tibet, the president of New York University all called for calm and understanding in a new age. Then something felt… wrong. I cannot tell you how I know, only that I do." An intriguing quality of hers; when Scarlett thinks something is wrong, it is. Period. "There was a conflict in a building beside Times Square, one of the high rises. I heard a man scream that a policeman intended to jump into the crowd, and no one could survive a fall that way. What was there to do? Let him die in front of a crowd of thousands?" Irony is not lost on her, while she stares into the glass, her clouded eyes dimmed from their surreal auroral-green hue. "I flew to catch him. Johnny Storm of the Fantastic Four did as well. He can convert himself to fire. We both went as fast as possible, and still missed him. The policeman hit the ground, someone from up there shot him with an… energy blast? An energy weapon? I don't know. His chest had a hole blown clear through it. When he hit the ground, he was dead and lost his human form, becoming something they call an alien in the press. And they are, I think, right. He did not look like anything I have ever seen, which may itself not be much of a gauge. But his blood started to sear my lungs, and several other people were clearly in duress."

*

for the most part, Xavier listens quietly as Rogue unfolds her story with the glass of beading water held between her hands. Xavier himself has crossed over to his desk, propping himself up against it with crossed arms. He does interject the occasional question such as, "Where was this screaming man? In the building or the rally..?" and, "His blood? Are you saying that it somehow vaporized when shed?" and finally, "Why are you so sure this murdered man was from another planet? We are living in a time now where blue skin and feathered wings are no longer so fantastic. Despite the pop-culture stereotype, green skin alone would hardly seem to be a sure sign of extraterrestrial contact."

*

"The screaming man was in the crowd behind us. He was not the only one to shout, merely the one closest to me." Eyes closed, Scarlett drops into a very simple meditative technique. Hers is a skill developed over time, so long ago, it's become reflex. Hints of her past lie in those surfacing abilities, and her slim fingers sketch a line upon the glass. "He was in the crowd. There were at least six or seven other people who noticed, men and women. He was high enough up. Many television cameras and photographers were on hand." That's one question. The next?

"Professor, the blood of the policeman was green, for one. It had a caustic quality. He was a green-skinned figure, pointed ears, an almost goblin-like appearance had I to describe them from myth. But this man was large, and heavily muscled, with a weirdly grooved or clefted chin. I do not know how to describe it. I can draw it?" It helps to have an artistic bent. "How do I know he was from another planet? I've been to six different realms beyond this one at last count, possibly three separate states of being. He resembles none of them. The reaction of Princess Crystalia." Oh yes. She knows the name. "She seemed deeply concerned, and that takes a great deal of effort to upset her. Perhaps something her people know about. The technology used to shoot him. There were others in the building who attacked. Perhaps Reed Richards of the Four can give more insight."

*

Even so, Charles can't help recalling the scaled girl he grew up with, or for that matter the pointy-eared tailed young man confusingly purported to be her son. A mutation that would alter the blood to the point it was green would be extreme, but far from beyond possible.

But if Crystal found something about the man specifically alarming, that's not to be dismissed. "It could prove useful to have a sketch from a first-hand account on hand, thank you." he agrees with a nod. "But after you've had a chance to clean up and settle." With some effort and her permission he could draw out the images from her mind of course, but there's utility in having a hard copy, even if by it's nature less precise.

*

Even more confusing… that blue scaled girl might have connections to this one, none established officially, and her 'son' is equally as known. Call it what one will.

"I will make that when I can." Scarlett puts down the glass of water. "If this is a shapeshifting alien species, that will cause hysteria and panic among the rest of the metahuman population, surely. Mutants, how are we different? How many people resemble humans but have genetic deviations, variations, covers? This is the dawn of a frightening morning if we do not have action, and I have tried so hard to push forward a positive agenda. Time is out. What do we do?"

*

Charles straightens up again with a 'hm'. He crosses the room once more to pour a second cup of water for himself. He takes a drink, pausing to consider the glass as he speaks. "If the question turns to what they or we, what any of us can do, it will prove disastrous. Policy built around paranoia and doom-saying always is." he looks across to Rogue, expression serious. "What we do is reframe the question. Draw focus away from what any of us could be, and instead to what we are. We look into this. If it's genuinely innocuous, we help show the public. And if it turns out there is something nefarious at play, we take the opportunity to be seen helping address it."

*

"Policy built around anticipating worse case scenarios does not help the people living day to day, and it only gives the hawks a footing to impose draconic regimes on us," Scarlett agrees. That Barnard College and Columbia education pays off, a reason they've probably accepted her to a notoriously chauvinistic institution. Not just to look pretty, which under the circumstances, she makes ruinously lovely. All the same, she does not meet his eyes, favouring staring into her cup as though she can divine the future out of the water. "We reframe the situation? Is it possible to raise the notion that, like any peoples of Earth encountered for the first item, there are no absolutes of good, evil, hostile, benevolent? That we cannot hope to know their intentions if we approach them on a war footing? That's what gives me such pause at the news of reforming some kind of task force or an agency, like the Avengers Initiative. I want to see the world protected, of course. Can we afford to start shooting first and questioning later? No. But I fear they will not see it that way. Violence is easy. Violence is instinct, fed by fear."

She is a committed pacifist, through and through, until she isn't. Does it show?

*

She's in good company, in that respect at the moment. Xavier nods, agreeing with both her appraisal and her concern. He smiles a little as she, rather knowingly or not, shows off that budding education. Falling into the academic pattern himself he answers with, "It's an age old question. And what would you propose, faced with the greatest unknown mankind has yet to face?" it's a very real and present problem right now, but sometimes it can be helpful to walk through the steps the most at times like that.

*

Fingers curl and touch her lips, giving Scarlett a definitive contemplative cast to her features. Dipping her head forward leaves sparks and shadows painted along her fair skin, taking the place of the soot that should be there. The burnt bits are, if nothing else, captured in her clothing.

"Me? Do not be shaped from a position of reaction, but take the initiative. We have languished on our laurels far too long, hidden in the dark and tried to avoid attention. We always knew the day would come when that could not be sustained. That day was probably six months ago when the riots began." Racial and mutant riots were a feature through the spring and summer. "Something is going to break at this rate, and if we do not establish ourselves in the face of media scrutiny, it is going to consume us in a dark wave. Is it the hour now to go to Washington and offer our assistance? Do we have the priority of creating a public image as our best armour against fear, so we're unimpeachable? I can't shoulder these burdens with any certainty except there is a nobility to stepping up at an hour of need rather than living back, cautiously. Those prophets and beacons of hope do not sit back, they charge into the fray and use their status as a shining exemplar to inspire, rather than evoke loathing. We can't live in an ivory tower."

*

Xavier raises one eyebrow slowly that. "Oh? And yet it sounds as if you have a very clear idea indeed of what you think that I should be doing for someone who shies away from saying so." he notes, his tone a bit clipped. "Especially as I've only just said the very same thing myself." he says, though there's a grimace into his own glass as he says it. She's not wrong if she senses the reluctance in the professor to throw the students he feels responsible for into this very public trial by fire. He'd take it on himself far more willingly, but the irony of his dream is that if it's to be for all mutants, then all mutants are owed a chance to enact it. More than that, it's necessary that many do.

*

"I do not tell you or anyone else what to do. I give suggestions. I am not the one leading these things." Scarlett raises her hands, trust fatally punctured at censure. Today of all days may be the hardest to bear it, and her pupils widen in black oblivion surrounded by a surreal shade of green mimicking the northern lights in the polar regions. "Who would listen? No one wants to hear the diplomat." Tongue clicking hard against her palate makes up for a bittersweet streak of emotion, spindled into a weapon that could easily be hurled at the unexpected target if they come within the crosshairs of her awareness. "Yet we can agree, surely, that there must be some way forward. There is no perfectly safe path. I've summoned all the thoughts I can upon that point. We hide to the background and act the best we can. We take a leadership role. We stay passive and fight back against a decision made for us."

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