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It has been a week since the volatile mutant, Live, was liberated out of Iceland on the second rescue op. There were answers needed for his sake, his partner's sake, and that off other Mutants. many from the rescue oops teams have waited anxiously to speak with Live who had been black bagged for security purposes.
Kaleb was not shy about fucking out of a discourse on math he could give in his sleep. He followed in the pack behind the others being the most malleable of the bunch. "Let's hope he's understanding about the bag thing. He speak English?"
"I speak Icelandic, otherwise," Scarlett points out for the benefit of those assembled. She may be the reason to worry, however, and thus doesn't linger all that far from Jean. If anyone has to silence the pandemonium chorus in her head, it may be the fellow member of Team Redhead. "The functional differences in verb tense notwithstanding. Though should he be in a particularly tricky mood, we may have to be particularly diplomatic and sweet-tempered." The sunny hue of her smile is potentially a horrifying juxtaposition to someone with a bag over his head and body, presumably, but she constitutes far from the scariest individual outwardly. "With any luck, we can encourage our friend not to be on a fear footing."
Kwabena and her have been doing terrible things. Notably the kind of things that necessitate wearing casual clothes for hitting and assaulting innocent inanimate objects with massive force. The smell of cigarettes might be around the African cabbie turned would-be hero or assaulter of naughty Nordic nincompoops. She gestures for him. "If he seems likely to harm himself, would you make sure no one gets too scratched up?"
Dressed appropriately, not to mention carrying that sweet and horrible aroma of cheap cigarettes. In his white tank top and X-branded workout shorts, Kwabena doesn't necessarily present the most intimidating demeanor. Sure, his body is in fantastic shape, but his muscles bear no genetic augmentation. At least, not yet. Barefoot as well, he seems as out of place as he feels.
Still, he turns a wary eye from Jean Grey toward Scarlett when she gestures for him. A slow nod of his head is given, and he closes his eyes. His jaw grinds a bit. A deep breath is taken. Then, the room is filled with the quiet sound of ice cracking, or perhaps, of charcoal burning on a hot, still afternoon. His skin is transforming into its super solid state, from head to toe, but at least he's trying to do it slowly and… quietly.
Diplomacy.
When the deed is done, he steps carefully around the others until he comes up alongside the prisoner. Bare feet are helpful; it allows him to move on tip toes to avoid denting the floor. He'll keep a watchful eye.
Walking in a few minutes after the others, Warren didn't come down here to the medical lab with the group. By the surprised look on his face he wasn't expecting to see anyone, let alone a group, down here. He wanders into the room, his shirt removed and from all appearances being used as a makeshift bandage on his harm. Giving everyone a somewhat curious look as he makes his way over to where the bandages are kept, rummaging around until he finds what he is looking for.
"So…" he asks as he discards his shirt into the medical waste bin and starts to bandage up a bleeding cut on his arm, "…what party am I missing?"
"It's not like he's going to move." Jean states, leaning against the wall of the makeshift prison that they carved out for the boy, her head lowered, hair still damp from the shower that she had earlier but never really thought to brush out. It was getting unruly, unkempt, and long enough for a braid to trail down her back and possibly round her backside.
Things were getting weird.
"And keep in mind, he is not like the rest of them that we try to help." She points out, but it was clear that she wasn't there to assist. She was there for another matter entirely, not one that she would share with the rest of them. So for now, she settles against the wall, both fingers pressed against her temple as she closes her eyes to focus.
Talk about reading the room.
Enter Live.
The young boy remained in the chair, hands covered in black bags and tied behind his back. There was the appearance of food that was spat out upon his shirt, dried and a few days old, much to his refusal to eat. Someone even tried to feed him milk, for the tendrils of it all remained crusted to his chin. He didn't look too starved, it was clear that he ate, clear that he had gotten up and used the bathroom, but clear that he also didn't allow anyone to clean his face. He was not a boy. He would say.
The bag was removed from his head, but the blindfold upon his face remained. He was cut from most senses, and through testing, most had a general idea of what he could, and had done. Touching, seeing. Maybe it was what triggers the change in others. So for now, he remained bound.
As to Warren's question? It would be clear. They're here to get answers.
Kaleb did not look pleased by this. Jean assured him there was reason but still, Echo looked nonplussed. 'We cannot broach peace if we treat our own people like criminals.' His words were formed as such that they bounced around the space Live was in but not through it. It might be why he was there, offering an olive branch or perhaps to see they could speak privately infront of someone. He might not be much in a fight but at least he was quite utilitarian. There was a rare shadow of expression on his face and he felt, it seemed, genuinly bad for the guy's treatment. 'Can we get him some water or a cup of coffee or something civil at least?'
Some people are genuinely kind, caring, and sweet. Others put a frosting on their darker nature. Scarlett straddles a thin line between perpetual darkness and sunlit brilliance, the twilight of the self when her better aims balance against a certain and pragmatic willingness to act. She remembers what this particular young man did to her.
All those fragments of her psyche remember. Sadly, not all of them are known for their compassion and forgiveness. She missed Mr. Messiah by about twenty centuries.
Still, she sounds lovely enough. Sound is all that matters, especially with that dusky rasp to her usual soprano. Two reasons; her voice is rather stirring, and her Icelandic holds all the lyrical intonations of its mother language, Old Norse. Or, in her exclusive case, Aesir. There's more than a few parallels of rolling, sonorous eloquence that reveals her other job: skald.
"«Has the treatment been so bad?»" In motion, she'll make it hard to track the precise source of where she is. Wiser for everyone. Touch me and I'll snap your neck may be hidden on the minefield of her broken thoughts. Outwardly, she's all charm and a nod to Warren as he enters. "«They are treating you with the softest gloves. Try to keep your claws in and teeth covered.»"
The mutant's silvery eyes turn from one face to the other. Warren he does not recognize, but he can appreciate the man's practical approach to wound treatment. Jean gets another look, one he doesn't share any words to. Kwabena isn't a stranger to what's going on here, but… in his youth, having someone tied up in a 'basement' meant something else entirely. It's fair to say that he is struggling, as well, to understand why Live is being treated this way.
Hopefully he doesn't have to find out the hard way.
Warren's eyes fall on the 'captive' mutant, his face contorting into something that is a cross between anger and pain. Rage and fear. He looks away, his eyes shutting tightly to try and save himself from the site of the bound and blindfolded man in front of him…or to try and wipe whatever vision of his recent past the sight has awaked. "For the love of God…" he says quietly, eye opening to search the faces of his friends, his companions…his family. "Is /this/ what we do now?" His eyes focus on Jean and Scarlett, the yellow hue of them darkening into a deep burnt orange.
He doesn't like this, not one bit. His wings, having been collapsed into his back, spring forth behind him, the feathers ruffling agitatedly. The scraping sound they make mimicking that of a blade on a whetstone.
The boy wasn't too non-plussed about the whole thing. But.. even as he speaks in his Icelandic tones, what everyone else could hear was -English-. It was clear that it was Jean's doing. Tapping into those around them to make it all easier to understand his words, and them him.
Mind tricks. Those things were the /devil/.
It wasn't for a moment until the boy begins to speak, his chin lifted just a touch as he presses his lips together as if he were forming a ball of spit..
"Don't you dare." Jean states, Icelandic? Yes. That wasn't translated.
But the boy does grin at Jean's closed-eyed snapping, his head tilting ever so slightly. "I won't touch any of you." His accented English draws off. "I promise. But I beg of you.. release the binds.. I want to see my saviors.."
"Don't touch him." Jean says in English.."
"…Awww.." He teases. "You afraid. You are. I know that feeling in the air. I can tell. I can tell when you root and pick in my brain as well. But yes. This is what they do. They bind me. I cannot see. Take this blasted cloth off of my eyes. I want to look at you all."
English, old Norse. Not much difference when someone gets right down to it. "He tries to sow discord among us. That's something of his essential nature, hardened by the partnership he had." Let there be resoundingly little doubt in her voice if Scarlett is wrong, but then the acoustics are meant to be one of the many masks she wears. Still, she remains facing the young man, her expression calm.
"Rebellious is nothing new. We know what you're doing. Sooner or later, every teenager goes through it. However angry you get, we will treat you like a person." A smile lingers on her lips. "However much you try to instigate something, you'll find we won't rise to the occasion. You will not be hurt, nor prevented from using your powers unless you prove a harm to yourself and others." But the underlying message is there; he's not solely in control. Her expression remains serene, for all of Warren's rage and plausible disquiet on the air. "When our guest is given to being unpredictable and fond of controlling others, certain precautions are necessary. The rest — behaviour, power use, language — are his decision."
Kaleb was happy to assist Rogue in her anonymity. Eyes closed for a moment and he rerouted aural paths and the reverb of where Rogue was speaking from so that her words formed one echo chamber around Live giving the source no direction any longer. There was no bother for pretenses on his part since he's been off and Echo spoke without bothering to use his mouth as a speaker anymore. "Were I him I'd be pissed too. And stop sitting, guy. You will seriously start to dehydrate that way. You do not want the migraine from that."
Echo patiently, patiently waited an answer for this one. He murmured to Jean, "Can he understand us too?" His brow furrowed curious to her. Jean would likely pick up on exactly what he was doing. His tone didn't change, and his voice didn't modulate any differently, but he spoke directly to Live, dropping the words directly into his ear with a reasonable earnestness. *Hey, stop being a dick. These people actually want to help you. I get it. Believe me, I get it, but we're on your side here.* the directive was there and he wasn't speaking from a place of hostility. There was, however, visible discomfort and it was by jean's request alone he wasn't already over there. His jaw set and he tried to reason with the ladies one more time. "Look, the people who had me had be like this for like two weeks. It sucks. Trust us, Warren and I can definitively tell you being treated like a lobster is not going to improve relations here. He has a history of not being able to trust people for a good reason I imagine." He left off the 'because people are awful' part at least.
An odd look forms upon Kwabena's face when the unfamiliar words present themselves suddenly to him… in his native tongue. Not English, but Dangme, the dialect of his people. He glances from Echo to Jean, trying to guess at who is responsible, but it's a worthless gesture.
After a time, and given there are no words of complaint to the young man's plea that his blindfold be removed, he steps forward. Remaining in his altered state of radically modified 'hardness', his fingers might feel more like warm rock than flesh when he reaches forward to begin unfastening the blindfold at the back of Live's head. Given no further complaints, he will remove it and tuck it in his palm. Then, as if testing this strange form of language transportation, he speaks out in his native tongue. "«Better?»"
Warren's eyes shift from the bound boy to Jean and Scarlett in rapid succession then fall onto Kaleb and he shakes his head. The rage on his face dissipates into a look of just utter disappointment. "We are supposed to be better than this. This…" he says, motioning to the kid in the chair, "…makes us no better than the people that did this to me, or who took Lorna…" he levels his eyes on Kaleb, "…or you."
"What makes you think that what I do is silly rebellion?" The boy asks. With the voices bouncing around him, it was hard for him to tell whom that question was directed to. "I am not angry. I am bored. I am tied up. I cannot see. Tis not the first time that something as such has happened to me."
His words were casual, nonchalant. Yes he was playing them against each other, all the while the noose was tied tightly around his neck.
Bound hands to the chair lift in what could be considered a shrug. He couldn't stand, as much as he wanted to. And much to Kaleb's wise words, his mouth opens, yet nothing falls out, instead.. he settled in with a warm and kind smile.
"He can understand us just fine.." Jean murmurs quietly, her eyes still closed, and yet through those around.. she can 'see' the room.. but could she know what was about to happen?
Quite possibly. For she inches right towards the door with the handle upon it, both hands free yet eyes still closed..
*CLICK*
Freed from the subjugation that the X-Men had put upon them, the eyes of Live finally lift up to meet Kwabena's. Is that better? He asks… as Live begins to toy with the inner makings just by eye contact alone with Kwabena, his gaze seemingly flits towards the door where the *CLICK* was once heard and where Jean now stands..
..who locked them all inside.
"I warned you not to touch him." Jean states, furious now. "I said, 'DO NOT TOUCH HIM!'"
|ROLL| Jean Grey +rolls 1d20 for: 17
Echo was there as a utility. He wasn't a fighter. He wasn't a tank. He did two things really well: He could punch some guy's fist with his face super well, and the pretty boy could also scramble the inside of someone's brain like a blender. He really didn't like doing this. Was something up? Yes. But it was not something he had to be asked twice and the look on his normally stoic expression was disappointment? Regret? Hard to say.
There was a directive brought to him which was clear: Neutralize the situation.
The sonic balled up his handed into tight fists and he pulled sounds apart and amplified all of them in the room into a cone just to bear down on Live in the chair making for Kwabena. He hated doing this, but also hated the prospect of Kwabenna blowing them up more so. As the only person in the room without a healing factor? Understandable objection.
There was a cacophony that just assailed him, careful to keep a distance; a constant low thrumming that sped up up up to seize and control Live's heart rate, the higher tones to pierce cellular structures causing them to explode in cellular chain reactions, and the warbling scream in the middle that started to cause vertigo, disorientation, and hopefully right now what Kaleb was going for: blindness. The downside was this was a sensory assault that could, in theory kill him, and if it went on long enough, leave the sonic blind for a time as well. So much for being civil. They could have just invited the out for lunch. Why was everything so complicated?
Alarm flares in the bloodstream. Scarlett's strategy starts with stealth, as her codename probably would imply. Absent any crackling lightning or flying flechettes, she seems confined to practical solutions. Hovering an inch and a half above the floor muffles her footsteps. Neither does she run or dive. With an eye on whether Live turns in his chair occluded by the cone of sensory misery, she reacts as fast as she can to stay firmly out of sight.
That other signature ability she delivers from behind, at speed. Rogue's good at sneak attacking. Even if it hurts through the ghost of interference crackling.
A flurry of two pinpoint strikes lash out with uninhibited force, her fingers straight and palm firm. The first to the weak point at the neck, that one means to stun, distract. The second slides in to flank, bare fingers on bare skin, turning Live's head away. It won't matter which goes first. Her DNA shifts and twists, the void striking out. At this point, all she can do is hold, taking them to the floor, presumably. Please, don't kill her, Kale. Potato bars await!
The moment Live's eyes make contact with Kwabena's, a still comes to the room. The Ghanaian tilts his head curiously, then looks down to his fingers. Where they had touched the back of Live's head, there is a change taking place. It seems subtle, at first. Fingers that were in the state of solid mass sublimate into black tendrils of smoke, which is not at all abnormal for this mutant; he may not be able to control the various states of matter his body can attain, but the capacity is there.
Kwabena watches as the transformation crawls up his hand, proceeding to his elbow. Curiosity becomes concern, for a part of his brain is accessing thoughts and patterns he did not know existed; as if he is beginning to understand how the change is taking place. "«What the… what the hell?»" He turns to Jean, then, and proclaims in his broken English, "I did not!"
Well. Perhaps he didn't feel it.
It isn't mere understanding that creeps upon him. Mastery of his powers, a skill that should have taken years… flooding him at once. Beyond this, the haunting memories of youth that drove him from his home are drawn up and perverted into something worse than nightmare. His silver eyes darken, until the light has seeped into utter darkness that spreads beyond iris and into the bloodshot whites, until all is snuffed out. The good parts of him drain, like oil from a pan.
In the next second, something terrible happens and it comes faster than most might predict. Kwabena's body bursts into a cloud of black smoke, but the transformation does not end there. His clothing doesn't yet have a chance to fall to the ground, for it becomes ash; the clouds of black tendrils ignite, filling the room with a brilliant blast of white and searing heat. What was flesh and bone, in less than a second, became gas that ignited… like the winds of a dying star.
A horrific cry of malice shakes the room with an electric buzz. You see, when excited at the molecular level, gas becomes ionized and changes into plasma. Kwabena, in such a state, has lost himself and is left with nothing but rage. Murderous rage, delved from the darkest places of his childhood and twisted out of control. If something isn't done to end it quickly… the power could very well mount until a brand new star is born in Westchester County.
Fortunately, Echo and Rogue are there to shut Live down. The mounting insanity ceases, at least in time to prevent Kwabena from immediately melting the mansion and surrounding grounds, but he's still burning, out of control, and screaming in that deafening, electric way.
Warren, being in the state of semi-rage he was in doesn't see the impending trouble till it already starts. Perhaps it is subconscious, or perhaps his new wings have their own sentience, but they react almost before Warren registers what is actually happening. They sweep forward, sending knife-like flechette feathers at the form in the chair as well as Kwabena, neurotoxin dripping from the edges in a somewhat viscous green fluid. The moment of the wings slice through several cords and cleave a couple of monitors in twain, which Warren is sure to hear about later.
Then, there is fire a gas cloud that expands and explodes the air around them, pulling the oxygen from the room. Warren's wings close in around him and appempt to shield whomever else is within reach by encircling them as well. The fire hurts. Warren screams.
|ROLL| Jean Grey +rolls 1d20 for: 17
Reasons to lock the door.
Should Live happen to look into the eyes of Jean the monster that would emerge would be wonderous, and in the sense dangerous to all that encompass the house. For those that the Lady She does not regard as pets, would be consumed under living fire, sent to the earth to be reborn again.. a forceful reincarnation that most would not expect.
And it would be painful.
But to watch everything unfold was maddening. The screech that rips her out of the minds of everyone may not be felt, but she could feel it. Both fingers smack against her face as her eyes nearly bulge from her head and light a-fire in instant protection from their rejection and the pain of it all.
And it doesn't stop there. For her shoulders bend as if a worldly weight is rested upon them, the partial submission that Jean allows, recoiling like a damaged animal in the corner while The Lady She, Mom steps in to take her place. The place of the woman who was just like her, but Her, being herself, burns a-cinder and allows pale skin to crack with black lines that form a roadmap of chaos upon the left side of her visage.
Live was no worse; for when he suffers, it was all encompassing. The loudness that blinds him, the strike to the neck that stuns him, the snuff of a breath or forgetting to breathe that draws him unconscious. Which, is good thing. For Kwabena was threatening to send the school to South America. The climate change for Bobby wouldn't be good!
And yet, while chaos swirls around them, Jean manages to stand straight up. The fire was life. It was incarnate. It was she and it was her. Death and rebirth, sleep to dream, dream to sleep and live.. what have you.
Millions of eons all in a single ember, and she stepped towards the screaming mutant with a scowl and a lean forward..
Imagine Gandalf, leaning towards a babe, her scowling features contain much disdain and love, if one could ever imagine so.
"Pull yourself together!" The woman, The Lady She says, which almost sound as if a million voices were chiming in with their own effects, discordant and wonderful. "I -WILL- eat you."
Yes. Kwabena. The Phoenix will eat you. Ask Red-head numero Uno, for the life-fire resonates within Scarlett.
Flame and fury are sufficiently conveyed through the fugue of impeding theft. Danger. Scarlett presses her hand flat to the back of LIve's neck and curls protectively over the prostrate mutant bound to a chair and flung onto his stomach. He has some defense against the plasma singeing the air, the sonic cone shaking them both free of their sensory moorings. The ecstasy and the agony erase all other thoughts in her mind. Pulling back only happens when the mutant is flat out unconscious. And possibly worse off, but safety in assurance.
She's the Soul-Thief for a reason. A substantial chunk of her self, the psyche, that sentient rationality immeasurable to doctors of the church and philosophers, is a younger, gentler Jean Grey. It knows the Lady She; behind that wall, Scarlett herself knows that bird. Her head lifts and those greener than green eyes blaze in pale reflection to Her. "She does not lie. She is old, noble, and terrifying. Heed her." That her accent is somehow a blur of American and LIve's Icelandic ought to be telling.
Kaleb focused that hell scream that pierced the senses. It was focussed and it hurt for Echo to do, but he did it, as the white of his sclaras shot dark red. Live was going down blinded, and under the well placed neurotoxin, and Rogue seizing him…but it was suddenly got; too hot. The sonic scream went erode and unfocused as Echo screamed, in pain bringing his arms up to protect his face. As Kwabena became living ash and smoke the sonic started to cough up a lung and backed away rapidly. He was blistering. There was no armor and no healing factor here. He pulled the sound around him to form a choir of pain in two octaves. *Help….him…quick please…*
The voice of a god strikes Kwabena at the very center of his soul. The command resonates his being, shattering the poison left upon him like the poison that is left upon the young mutant who assaulted him. All of that rage and malice has nowhere to go, but under the pressure of the Endless Voice, the Lady She, it cowers.
Perhaps, just perhaps, a bit of that poison is being siphoned free by the same power that put it there; the same power but under a different hand.
The electric scream becomes a hoarse shout. White fire is sucked out of existence, replaced by black tendrils of thick gas that collect into a violent cloud. Whipped into a spherical frenzy, the smoke bats around like some kind of monstrous spell, before it falls to the ground, solidifying into flesh and bone once more.
Naked, Kwabena is curled into a ball that matched the shape of the smoke cloud. Steam rises from where he lies, breathing heavily once the manic shout dies from his lips. The sudden erasure of maddening anger, having been ripped from his mind, leaves him confused, stunned, and physically on the doorstep of clinical shock.
"W… wha… what… wh-what… wh-what is… where do… w-wh…"
Warren may have a healing factor, but it is a limited one. The unprotected skin of Warren's back, the parts the wings couldn't cover, are blackened and charred, blistering from the extreme heat.
The wings unfurl, receding into the mutant's back as the screaming stops as he raises his head, his eyes deeper red as he gazes at the mutant on the floor, to the one by the chair, to Kaleb.
Eyes slowly turn more yellow as Warren reaches to grab a couple blankets, moving to drape one over Kaleb and the other over Kwa before he looks over at Jean wearily. "You with us, Red?" he says, pained.
Little fires from Kwabena's tormoil remained along the room. In which Jean inhaled and the Lady She snuffed them out with a calming blow of breath. Her fiery eyes focus upon each and every mutant pressed to the floor, her lips worry and work back and forth until they settle again with a purse in thought.
It was like she considered it..
Reaching out in that very moment..
To snuff out each life in the room for their transgressions..
Ones that they did not make and yet will..
Warren's words allow her to blink for a time, studying him, from the charred skin upon his back to the metal that shines within the light that flickers with the hopes to dim. "Nay."
And that was the truth. For now, Jean was gone. But the mother, the Lady She remains in place.
"One day you will learn that not everyone can be saved. Wants to be saved." Her fingers lift to point to every one of them. "You wallow in your misery and inflict your pain upon those whom you think deserve better. You cannot fix the world, no matter how loudly you yell. But I?"
She turns and tears towards the door, her hand reaching out to crumble it with the might of her telekinesis, the metal itself slamming into the wall afar as she begins to walk and take her leave..
"I will burn it all and make it anew…"
Chances are, she won't. She'll pretty much take a bath just to make the water float and wiggle! Or probably eat all of the cookies in the house. Not that -they- would know..
Kaleb sat as far back away from Kwabena as he could get. He managed to make it almost to the wall before hunkering down into a ball trying to stay low. At least they teach one in school to go low to be able to breathe in case of a fire. He was seared on one side and burnt. Plasma's hot. Turns out incredibly unhappy for those standing really close to it. He was shaking and trying to focus on breathing without coughing when the blanket came. HE murmured to Warren, "Thanks…" Yeah his throat burned, but when Jean or Jean the Greater Form addressed them sound wove around him and echoed without him speaking *Jean, all we asked for was an answer… Please don't burn the world down. I just got the new apartment and no one wrecked this one yet* He sighed. His poor stuff never really stands a chance.
When the blanket touches him, Kwabena reacts with a violent flinch. However, his trembling and babbling only last so long. He manages to pry his face away from his arms long enough to catch a glimpse of the room, and Jean's parting words.
"I… am s… sorry." He doesn't need to apologize, but with thoughts so jumbled, he just doesn't know it yet. It also takes the rest of his strength, and his head flops down into his arm, eyes shut.
Warren looks after 'Jean' with a measure of concern, his wing feathers twitching and shifting as if threatening to do something, like send another round of flechettes at Jean's back to try and subdue the Lady She, but ultimately he turns from the Phoenix to move and tend to the wounded. He leaves the unconscious Kwabena on the floor for now, instead moving to Kaleb's side. "Well, at least if she ends the world you won't be in pain for to long, Kaleb. Come on, lets get you on a bed and look at these burns."