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Me today: *writes action sequence* ". . .actually that doesn't work." *rewrites action sequence* *pauses* *has a good leisurely think* "Actually, if I just change it like that, the first way works."
6 days ago
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Me today: *writes action sequence* ". . .actually that doesn't work." *rewrites action sequence* *pauses* *has a good leisurely think* "Actually, if I just change it like that, the first way works."
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25 days ago
Writer's famous last words: "Oh it shouldn't take long." -3 hours later, it's constructed to satisfaction.
Those times in every writer's life, when they read over something they'd written in time's past and go: "What was I *saying*?!"
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2 mos ago
Anyone else who uses Wix: If you ever duplicate a post then start editing the copy but don't finish, make sure you publish it *before* reverting to draft. Don't let what happened to me, happen to you.
Bio
It all never happened ~ but in your mind! It all never happened ~ but in your mind!
Aspiring Screenwriter. Imagination whiz jumping between many 🌎s. Self-taught Pic/🎶 Editor, VFX Coordinator & Mixer. Independent student of 🎞; ever learning.
'The Reality Is: X-Men woke something up in me. 'The Reality Is: X-Men woke something up in me.
The Reality Is: It's getting me through.' The Reality Is: It's getting me through.'
The comic book world is such a rich sandbox! Perhaps none richer than the X-Men -mutations to mix, slice-of-life elements to turn into anything but ordinary -the lines are drawn but the colours exceed them ~care to embark on the eXploration with me?
*cue 🎶X-Men Animated Series theme🎼swelling into Fox Movies theme🎵*
Jean had been intending to search the facility for rooms unseen when she'd received Xavier's message about the injured guards. She'd changed course, but soon it became apparent someone had already had the mind to go check on them; a direction from Becker, possibly, following the radio disturbance.
Jean had decided then to return to medical to aid with the treatment of the guards when they were brought back. Besides a responsibility towards human life, she wanted to see what other damage the girl had caused and what she might further be able to infer about her from the guards.
Given her medical experience, she also didn't want to be missed. If she was going to go looking for places she wasn't meant to be, she wanted to be sure no one would be looking for her.
Ahead of that, however, Jean saw the director himself back in the hallways. She had tried to speak with him, but his impatience was clear despite his feigned accommodation -he apologized for keeping her in the dark, yet simply had too much to attend to after that mass technology glitch to go into anything more about it now. If she had spoken with Xavier on the details Becker had divulged to him, which it seemed she had, then that was really all Becker could say at this time.
He'd cited privacy again when Jean expressed wanting at least to know this girl's name.
The guards were back in the building at that point, being taken to the Medical Centre, and Jean had fell in line.
There wasn't anything of operative note from them, either, and as Jean assisted with treating their injuries, she'd reflected on the non-conversation with Becker. Jean preferred not to tap people's minds unpermitted, or without dire cause. There was more variance to this rule when it came to enemies, however, and Becker was giving off a certain vibe....She'd thought she might catch a stray thought. It was clear the safety of anyone who encountered this girl was at risk, and through extension the girl's own safety. They weren't sure what all she had planned -if escaping and existing outside the facility was the extent of it, or if she had something else in mind.
All that took precedence over certain privacy. The girl's and Becker's. However, Jean had found Becker's mind, your could say, shaded. She was sure with a little more time to concentrate she could see something through it, but that hadn't been afforded. She decided to try again after conducting her search of the facility. Gain an advantage by knowing more than he would expect and more of what he held in his mind.
The basement of Umbra Biogenetics had been conveyed as a place for old equipment; an office and research space no longer used since a new wing had been built two years ago; generally a place of no matter.
And that's exactly what Jean Grey had found when she went there now, for the first time.
She may not've found the hidden elevator shaft to the sub-basement, had it not been for the psychic signature she'd been following. An emanation which grew acutely perceptible from the top of stairs, and stronger with every step down.
Finding the shaft became a game of Hot and Cold, with the voice directing her taking the form of psychic imprints; like a handprint somewhere dust has settled.
The existence of this other basement in and of itself didn't register too strongly to someone who, back home, was used to having a hanger full with one or two aircraft at any given time, a war room, medical room and lab, an amplifier for telepaths, and of course where limitless simulations could exist in a limited-size room, all housed beneath your regular 18th century mansion. But the X-Men were open about it within their own walls. Their elevator opened onto a main floor hallway students may tread down in their day-to-day.
As Jean descended down this shaft, it was like walking into increasingly humid air; a growing weight pressing down on her perception.
When she came upon Ryder's room, it didn't feel like one where someone lived, but where they merely survived; the affect poignant. The psychic signature here, like no where else, added on an emotional weight. There was nothing more to be gleaned from this space. Jean moved on.
She next came to a research room, where her eyes moved over devices not unlike what were used above, or back at the X-Mansion, yet these ones felt deceptive in their familiarity. Jean flinched as someone with a headache may at a sudden noise.
Then she'd found the audio logs. . . .
While she listened, it was as though what they detailed came to life for Jean, at least in terms of the sensation she was experiencing; dialing up. But the mind working as it can when a person is concentrating deeply, or determined to finish something, the sensation was swept to the back of her mind until the point where it crashed back to the front, unable to be ignored any longer; the point when you realize you should've been paying attention to what your body was trying to tell you.
She managed to get out of the room, back up the shaft, to the main basement's stairs. Then she had to pause. Crouching down with a hand on the wall.
If the recurring experience before had been like psychic nausea, this was like being drugged. Any processing her mind had to do happened as though through a warped lens: the psychic signatures hanging in the air like pieces of broken mirror, distorting the room; thoughts from the people above freely entering her head, but coming as though from a malfunctioning radio in an echo chamber. Jean closed her eyes. Even her own thoughts felt disembodied.
Her mind shifted to Scott, her hand -in the psychic space of her mind- clutching the handle to "their door", yet it was as though she couldn't get a hold on herself -couldn't manipulate the handle to gain access.
And there was another...a certain sensation that had grown on her, within her, now feeling like cascading wind chimes drifting further apart. She could feel them still connected, still well, yet their sound was beyond her reach.
Opening her eyes, Jean determinedly stood up.
She had been hesitant to attempt stairs feeling like this, when someone else could be affected by a misstep. But she knew the sensations were all mental; she was capable physically. She just had to concentrate on her body instead of her mind for a few moments; had to get out of here.
Managing once more, Jean drew a breath at the landing; then made a beeline for her quarters.
At some point along the way, she vaguely registered Becker down another hallway -he probably saw her- but there was no way she could make a second attempt at him now.
Locking the door once inside her room, Jean drew more collecting breaths, but had to delay hitting the bed to first place another long-distance telephone call.
That done, she curled up with the distress of all she'd just learned and the disturbance of the lingering sensation: Her mind feeling like a PC made to process something it didn't have the hardware for, while other applications and programs were open. Its performance so hampered that even everyday tasks were met with a stall; impossible for anything to get done prior to a reboot.
Jean knew she wouldn't be able to communicate with Xavier or Scott until then.
While both bodies experienced the startle reflex, and both heads turned in her direction, the girl hadn't exactly achieved her intended effect. Alert described Cyclops and Professor Xavier's present state rather than scared. The two sitting watchfully, yet still.
Xavier even answered calmly. "I'm pleased to see you're still lively. In truth he knew she shouldn't be exerting herself, but he would follow her lead for the moment. As for where we came from, that would be a school I run in North America, for gifted young people such as yourself. I have made it my life's work to help those with strong powers out of troubled circumstances. As I once did for my friend here, Scott Summers." He gestured towards him, thinking it may help this young mutant to know that the two before her had, perhaps, some level of understanding on what she was going through. "He now assists me in the running of the school, and along with a select group of my other grown pupils fights to protect those who require it. My name, is Professor Charles Xavier. Perhaps you could tell us yours?"
Cyclops was questioning Ryder's choice of destination. Why plan so long to escape Umbra just to return to it? If she wanted to flatten the place, it sounded pretty clear she could've done that already, when she had initially escaped.
He didn't buy it. Something was up. Either she was going there for a different reason than she'd stated -something she realized she needed that wasn't tech related; she didn't have remote access to? Or she wasn't going there at all.
It did occur to him that their mini-X-jet was parked some distance in a clearing of the forest beyond the other side of Umbra. Could she have figured that out and wanted to steal their ride?
His sense of direction remained acute, though the more they travelled the more he lost ground on Ryder. He had the impulse to hurry -- he still had the advantage of size and could take much longer strides than she. But he knew better. Hurrying in this terrain at this time of day would only serve to set him back even more.
That's when he felt the ground shake beneath him, heard a sound like something being ripped from the earth at the same time, then heard the first scream, followed by gunfire.
"What the Hell?!"
Things became oddly clearer some distance up ahead, and Cyclops registered it was because trees had fallen out of view. 'Is she uprooting the forest, or...?' For all he knew this could be another mutant. The worst case scenario was it was an innocent local acting our of fear.
More sounds echoed -- quieter and less directly than if they hadn't been in a forest, but enough that Cyclops had a sense he'd be coming up on some sickening scene -- then came the shriek. It brought his mind back to the parking lot when Ryder had been injured. He was sure she'd just been again. This was not good.
Cyclops did hurry now -- recovering his footing fast each time he lost it. Pain was swept aside as adrenaline flooded in. He needed to get to the scene before -- He froze. Eyes widening behind his visor as mangled screams replaced by something worse registered through his auditory system.
His basic human instincts said to stay firmly planted where he was, but the rest -his X-Men instincts- took over; charging towards danger being just part of the protocol. Moving on, he practically felt what he was hearing, as though his body knew what his mind couldn't possibly. Some distance away in two separate places, two others were feeling the carnage as well, though decidedly more viscerally.
She'd been making her way to them since the failed communication, sensing he needed her, and now, Jean Grey screamed, clutching at her head as she felt multiple minds die horrifically in succession, then at once. She didn't even realize she'd fallen until she made herself open her eyes -- going against her instinct to shut out the world by shutting her eyes; she needed to see the space of the world in front of her which was devoid of decimation. But it was no use.
She registered no pain from the fall -- registered nothing but the concoction brought on by her mutant telepathy and natural empathy.
Xavier had gone back to the roads, planning on influencing a mind just enough to have himself driven back to the facility. He had come across a few vehicles indicating the arrival of more townspeople without any current occupants, when he, too, felt the pain of cerebral death on repeat. "AA-AH-AHHH!" His hands, too, clutching at his head.
Separately, the telepaths fought through the pain as though physically sifting through the bodies to try and locate one in particular.
He couldn't be among them -- he couldn't be. The townspeople were bold, but not that bold. If the gruesome sounds coming from the altered forest weren't enough, the insane amount of gunfire certainly was.
They weren't joining this fray.
One, however, perhaps with the panicked thinking of 'is it following me?!', perhaps by sheer accident, or perhaps getting off a calculated shot before turning tail to collect their quarry another day, fired off another of those enhanced net guns.
This one did ensnare Cyclops, who went down painfully, an unsettling warmth bubbling out in all the places where he'd been shot before by Ryder, indicative of the stitching and packing no longer holding. Only he wasn't registering that just now. He had something else to worry about.
The netting had managed to bind one hand tightly in the very position required for his visor to engage. After a few scarce seconds of blasting apart the earth Cyclops shut his eyes, having to act blind until he could extricate his hand.
The good news was: he had blasted apart some of the net, as well.
The bad news was: the blasting of the already disturbed earth saw to the felling of another tree.
It CRASHED down onto another, branches breaking. A thick one SLAMMING into an incline below -- one Cyclops had only minutes before came down in a scarcely controlled skid -- the branch now careening down it.
If that branch had merely rolled from the higher elevation, he could've heard it and blasted it away. As it came with the noise of coniferous impact and breakage, however, he couldn't sort out what he was hearing in time.
Cyclops had managed to stand up. This was one time he should've stayed down.
A yell was cut off as the air rushed out of his lungs -- the branch had slammed into him -- slammed him back into the thick trunk of another tree, and a series of tell-tale CRRRKKKKHHs resounded.
The branch fell away and so did he, finding himself in a lethal cycle --body desperate for air, but every breath CUT, the pain SEARED, breathing felt perversely like the absolute WRONG thing to do --that he would tear his lungs to ribbons if he expanded them against his splintered chest.
But he was so in need.
He lay literally gasping for his life.
His mind clouded over....
And as it would happen, so did the surrounding area.
Fog permeated the woods so if any foolhardy or militant souls were left, they'd be absolutely blind. The fog was oddly sectional, however, and where bodies lay it was clearer.
Cyclops, no longer blasting, had a vague, visual registration of the scene before his faculties fell further away.
....Jean. He'd thought of her. He'd seen her.... No. She shouldn't have been there. No where near this. He felt his lungs fill with a breath he hadn't taken. They filled gradually, deeply, painfully. Yet they didn't shred. Another... ...Familiar lips on his.
* * * * Three Weeks Later
"I still say, it doesn't matter who she is. That scene in the forest looked like a scene I would've left. Only worse. I know how you two feel about this sorta' thing, but you let Xavier put blocks in your mind when your power was only considered too dangerous. I mean come on -Scott was nearly among those in the pile out there." concluded the gruff voice of Wolverine.
Jean didn't need to be reminded -of the scene or how close she came to losing Scott. Truly his only saving grace might've been that he hadn't been right there when it all went down; there was no entertaining the idea that Ryder would've discriminated. "That carnage was a reactionary result," Jean pointed out in a quiet, yet authoritative voice, "Ryder felt cornered. Threatened. She's been a lab experiment all her life. If either myself or Charles try anything in her mind, she might react on an instinctive level to the exact result we're trying to avoid."
"She's been unconscious. And the longer we wait the less she's probably gonna' stay that way."
"We're not waiting, Logan."
"Right. We've just been having regular round table discussions about how exactly we should act. Same difference."
"Not to forget, she may not be quite as unconscious as she's seemed," came the reasoning voice of X-Men's most hirsute; The Beast, "though, as far as we are aware, he has been proceeding without evidential certainty on the matter, Charles has been proceeding on that thought, none-the-less. So far the place hasn't come crashing down around us."
"So far. If you ask me, Chuck is too close to this to base anything around. . .At least he's sound enough on the subject to keep her in the Danger Room."
And so that's where Ryder had been since the X-Men arrived on the unspeakable scene and jetted her, Cyclops, Jean Grey and Xavier back to the Mansion. The Danger Room, some distance down the basement hallway from the Ready Room where the X-Men were having yet another meeting on the matter of "Ryder Xavier".
Despite Ryder's extensive injuries, she hadn't been housed in the Medical Lab for a moment. It was deemed too risky, especially as Cyclops would be recovering there. Not only was the Danger Room the most fortified of the entire building, being that the X-Men could train at realistic intensity, but the simulation technology it contained could also be utilized -and was- to make the environment appear more welcoming.
The very last thing they wanted was for Ryder to think she had just traded one captive situation for another.
They made the room look like one of the Mansion's bedrooms, complete with a window. That being said, they didn't want the gesture to be misconstrued as some ulterior motive illusion, and so they lowered the realism of the sim so it did appear, more or less, holographic. Ryder would be able to grasp her setting was manufactured, and they would be agreeable to changing it if she didn't appreciate their aesthetic.
They didn't delude themselves either --knowing full well once she was awake, it likely wouldn't take long for her to get a technic read on the place and be able to adjust the simulation at will. But at least anything she could do with it would be contained within this space. Beyond it, they had removed anything they thought she could use as a weapon, going analog where possible.
A return trip had also been made to Umbra within these past three weeks, with the intent to shut the place down. They were unable to locate Becker, and the only hidden rooms they found were the ones Jean already came across. But they had seen to absorbing the young charges into Xavier's institute, and had recovered some things, including -thanks to Beast's eye for advanced technology- a bit of the material the guards had had which blocked Ryder's powers. Beast had what amounted to an educated idea that's what it could do, anyway, and was currently in the midst of understanding it so he could do something with it himself.
In the meantime, Xavier had been making regular visits to the Danger Room to visit his daughter. And for at least the past week, he had been making mental visits, too. Even in true coma, a mind was still active where the body wasn't.
He took it slow. Like a new neighbour making themselves known in no greater way than merely being outside, doing things in their own yard. Smiling when they'd catch your eye, but not making an attempt to draw you into conversation.
Today, Xavier decided to knock politely on the door, as for the first time the curtains hadn't been drawn. He had been able to see a few scenes within the mental "house" -Ryder seemingly going over her days at the Mansion so far.
They hadn't consisted of much beyond what care someone in her state would require, which was mostly carried out by Jean both because, despite the odd sensations she'd experienced, they felt she was best suited power-wise to be in such a position -a decision Cyclops couldn't argue, though he felt uneasy about each time Jean went in- and because from what Jean understood from the facility, it never seemed like Ryder was dealt with by anyone but males. They thought Jean would feel like a less hostile presence to her. As well, Jean had her level of empathy gained from the knowledge of Ryder's life.
Her husband's discomfort notwithstanding, Jean took the position willingly and, truth be told, had made similar "visitation attempts" to Xavier's, from a place of wanting to understand this girl. Both her pain, and how she could manage the degree she inflicted on others. That scene in the forest was the very embodiment of blind rage, and Jean wondered how Ryder's mind was processing that; if it even realized. But she had been treading even more carefully than Xavier.
Xavier was cognizant of Jean "stepping" here, like noticing remnants of footprints on the sidewalk. He had to smile at this. Though, he didn't perceive she had gotten as far as he now had.
This apparent fact pleased him all the more.
Cool. Reserved.
Scott Summers a.k.a. Cyclops, leader of the X-Men, was often misunderstood as not caring when in fact he cared deeply. So serious all the time because nothing was a throw-away to him; everything mattered.
Chief among it all, Jean Grey. The center of his world.
She had seen something past his dour exterior, had been open enough to receive him that he could open up to her; show a side to her few, maybe only she, knew.
Had. Knew.
Everything was changed now. All of their history ceasing to exist in Jean's mind, from a series of seemingly insignificant actions which turned into a majorly significant circumstance.
Sometimes Scott felt his entire life was defined this way.
Four people climb into a cockpit. Strap in. Take off. . . The next thing he knew he was living as a brain damaged, unwanted orphan.
Three kids get into a fight. One never gets up. One can never go back. . . Next thing he knew he was a mutant, and that defined everything about his life going forward.
Was that why. . ?
Two X-Men undertake a mission. Patrol a sector. Cross an invisible line. . . Next thing, he was waking up in the Med Bay, his head feeling. . .strange.
And Jean woke up feeling he was a stranger.
She hadn't recognized the X Mansion, yet somehow had vague memories of Charles Xavier, and fractionally remembered the others. Ororo Munroe, Hank McCoy, Logan, etc. somehow she knew them, yet not Storm, The Beast, Wolverine -the X-Men as a whole, her place as one.
Was that why she remembered nothing of Scott Summers? He didn't know who he was if not Cyclops, leader of the X-Men. But with Jean. . . Was this proof he wasn't, in fact, anything else?
Taken with everything, that couldn't make sense.
Jean had no memory that she was even a mutant, but it wasn't as simple as saying she lost all memories pertaining to that, if she still recalled everyone else in some way. . . .none of them she would've met had she not been a mutant. Scott needed things to make sense, and so little of this did.
What had even happened? The other X-Men had been patrolling other sectors. No one saw.
They had to have been hit by something. . .
A subsequent probe of the area with Cerebro bore no residual signature of another mutant, no device had been located and with the aforementioned absence of signature, no one could've come to dispose of one.
. . .Xavier worked out they had in fact encountered something, something that existed on a psychic plain- explaining why Jean was affected so drastically and Cyclops, comparatively nil.
So what was it? What was this? Coincidental? Planned? Scott's money was on the latter, but then who was behind it? Was this their intended result? Or was there more to the plan he needed to watch out for. . ?
He sighed as he finished crossing the hallways. It was already taking a toll, what he had to deal with in his head. . . .that strange sensation growing stronger.
Which is why Scott now stood outside the presently closed door to Xavier's office. And the voices he heard inside is why he now stood paused outside that door.
Underway inside, rather, sounding like it had just concluded, was another of Xavier's psychic therapy sessions with Jean. So far there'd been no breaththroughs. . .it didn't sound like one was made this time, either.
. . .Scott couldn't help eavesdropping.
He was finding it difficult figuring out how to be around her now. Where to start over. Scott didn't want to get in Jean's way of remembering "herself". Desperate though he was for her to remember "them", he didn't want her to feel pressured to prioritize that. . . .Events had a sequence. It wasn't for him to jump the line.
That's what he partially convinced himself of, anyway. But there was also the matter of. . . . .
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The lower degree of hostility and aggression in Ryder's voice wasn't lost on Jean. Though she couldn't tell if it was from anything on her part, or if Ryder was just too tired to give a full damn.
Jean was paying more attention to the implications of Ryder's first response, anyway. . .Though she acknowledged the second ahead of it: "No, if you can trust my word, I'm not following you."
She considered her following response before saying: "I guess what I mean to say is. . .on some level," still, she briefly closed her eyes, hoping this beginning wouldn't derail her entire message, "no where close to the same, but some. . I get it. As a telepath who hasn't always had the best control, I didn't have to worry if people wanted to hurt me, I knew. In a way how you grew up was a dialed-up microcosm of how the world is for mutants.
Looked at like objects, prizes. . .Years ago I was wanted for my powers. Through someone's manipulation I nearly destroyed everything that came to mean anything to me. . ."
From no thought that Ryder would care, just her own emotions on the subject, Jean hesitated before admitting ". . .I did kill people," only just audibly. Her fingers brushing her just noticeably distended waistline; when she allowed herself to think of it, it didn't feel right that she should be continuing her life, with Scott, literally making a life with him, when she was responsible for denying others theirs.
But things went as they did.
She refocused on the present, continuing in her initial tone of voice: "There are others here whose lives have been irrevocably changed through experiments. . .Whose value lies in their DNA. . .Their stories aren't mine to tell except to say all of us have found safety here. . .The things that have happened to us have always come from beyond these walls."
Finally Jean turned to look Ryder in the eyes. "I want you to know that security. Whether or not you find it here. . ."
Location: Asteroid M Skills: Power Mimicry - Active Power: Chaos Magic Light Manipulation Chlorokinesis
OfAll had reasoned Mary's choice for going off alone had something to do with facilitating the rescue, it had to. There was no other reason to go off, which was why OfAll offered her assistance. It just didn't seem sound for one person to try and attempt something by themselves in this situation -OfAll was certain Marygold would rather risk her life alone than anyone else, any other member of the team, that was her choice.
Likewise, this was OfAll's.
The only other thing OfAll could think of that required Mary doing something solo, was if it involved that unspoken power -which OfAll hadn't even been thinking of trying to manifest. She already knew what Mary explained to her, it came as a surprise that Mary thought that's what OfAll was getting at. But now wasn't the time to correct misunderstandings.
OfAll also didn't carry any assumptions about the efficacy of Mary's mutation. She wanted to alleviate the level of burden Marygold must've been feeling -and as Mary used a seed to move others back to the prior location of her vines, that gave OfAll an idea of how she could help.
And perhaps a part of Mary did appreciate this -she could've just vine-zapped OfAll away with the others too, couldn't she?
"Can--" her words were cut off by a rumble, then an eruption.
She felt herself getting pulled, she saw and felt fire -then suddenly for the second time that day, she found herself out in space. For barely a moment before they were back and Mary was repairing the ceiling with her all-purpose vines.
OfAll didn't miss the change in Mary's eyes, nor the fact something seemed different about her speech. OfAll furrowed her brows. She knew The Phoenix could speak through its host. . .
But now was the time for doing, not figuring.
And OfAll had a plan.
It would appear as if OfAll was doing the opposite of the instruction again, as "Mary" told her to come along and took off, while OfAll took a moment on the spot to manifest.
She felt the change surge through her -she had this one. It felt good to hold a nature power and have it come through her so easily. . .her heritage and nature were deeply linked.
For a moment, OfAll's face reflected calm. Then it was back to being all purpose.
Doing her best to recall the map Mira had shown them, OfAll spread her hands, her arms, and sent the vines out from both her present location and from where Mary had initially repaired the walls, all in an effort to reach and coordinate people further down.
Those going by would see vines having snaked themselves into arrows along the walls, with one word likewise written out: EVACUATE.
She felt her reach had gone its limit. Not as far as she would've liked, but far enough to make some difference, she hoped.
Marygold's prior words echoed in OfAll's mind. Numerous reasons she'd been told to go to the hanger, a few she couldn't be told about. . .Should she stay or should she go?
OfAll decided to go. She'd gained Marygold's powers, so she felt sound in her initial choice.
Now she wanted to make sure her signage was being followed, and assist any evacuees. OfAll was good with people; that's where she was needed.
And maybe from another location, she could spread more vines into areas she'd missed. At the very least, she could make repairs along the way if more explosions and collapses happened.
She raced back in the direction of the Hanger.
For OfAll to shoot more directing vines out along hallways she passes that she hasn't covered yet.
"I could feel her mind starting to. . .I think disconnect from what she's known, in some small way. . .maybe start to see what we're trying to show her." Jean closed her eyes regretfully, reproachfully, "then I brought her right back to that place."
"You didn't intend to."
"That doesn't matter. I should've realized in time to stop myself -and I should've known something was going on at Umbra."
Scott didn't agree Jean should be so hard on herself; this was clear in his manner as he responded: "Umbra had been keeping the child of Charles Xavier in their sub-basement for a decade and a half. Those people knew what they were doing in the psi-defense department."
"This goes beyond telepathy, Scott. . .I haven't felt like myself in other ways."
At this he only looked at her, before taking her hand.
"This pregnancy is affecting me in ways I couldn't have anticipated. . .and still with several months to go."
He looked down...this was a problem he couldn't solve.
The conversation, the realities of it, played back through Jean's mind the night of that first day Ryder was properly awake.
Subsequent nights her mind filtered through different recent events...like finding Scott gasping for life in the levelled forest...the X-rays, Ryder's, and actually Logan's from years ago, as a piece of another recent conversation filtered through her mind "she's unlike anyone else who's ever been brought here. The closest comparison would be Logan and even he was only too happy to have you connect with him."
Jean hadn't actively made another attempt to connect with Ryder since that moment on the Grounds. . .Just tried to remain open to her. Remembering, in fact, how Xavier was with her when he had first brought Jean to the school. She'd had her own reasons to be afraid. Not of him or the environment, but of her own powers. He didn't push her into feeling comfortable with them...just supplied her with what she needed and let her come to a "relationship" more or less on her own.
With Ryder, it came to be agreed to take an even more hands-off approach than they had been. . .just keep her supplied with what she needed.
Her refusal of further medical treatment felt like a step back, though Jean could understand. . .Ryder had to give herself over to them when her body was too damaged. In a way it was like her "receptors flattened" to allow her to tolerate this. But once strong enough, all her alert systems dialed up again.
The most that was extended in way of further connection, was when Storm had gifted her with a couple of plants -a tabletop size and one for the floor- from her greenhouse, for Ryder to keep in her room: "So you may keep the outdoors with you, even when you must be inside." They were a hardy variety, which Storm had selected both so Ryder wouldn't have to worry with particular plant care, and because they reminded Storm of her; surviving in unideal conditions. This latter aspect of the gift went unsaid.
Ryder was also invited to visit Storm's greenhouse "I find nature more agreeable company at times". And that was that.
Keep her supplied with what she needed, be it means of sustenance, self-care or space.
Interestingly, it was the very man whose example Jean thought back to that was having the hardest time with that last point.
"Look, either the kid is gonna' see value in you and all this or she isn't. You understood that with me."
"This is a different matter, Logan, and you know that."
"Yeah, because she's yours. . .She isn't."
And so it was fact that Ryder wasn't the only one with an affected sleep schedule.
Xavier, too, found himself awake. There were questions, many questions without answers...without even places to find them...If he had known Ryder was awake too, perhaps some encounter would've followed. As it was, she truly was a ghost to the two other telepaths in the mansion; her locked-down mind even enough to cause the great ones of Charles Xavier and Jean Grey to only just be aware that she was still on the property.
Xavier spent his late-waking hours in his own room.
Jean Grey, however, spent hers more like Ryder. Not to the same degree -Jean still got an adequate amount of hours once she found something to focus on that did the trick in settling her mind; a book, or a train of thought decidedly removed from the constrains of reality; what a family with Scott could be like.
Though some nights had her feeling like her brain was a radio station with no adjustor knob.
"you know I never thought I'd wish we had someplace else to go, but if Ryder is going to keep affecting you maybe we should find something."
They actually had tried. Home though the Mansion was, it was akin to a home one associated positively with growing-up in; you always hope it'll be there. You never exactly want to leave it. Yet life may dictate you do.
"This is a very traditional neighborhood. A community you can really trust." The words from a couple of months ago, spoken by a realtor showing Jean and Scott a prospective place.
The vibe behind those words had been transmitted loud and clear to them.
"'Traditional'. A community we can 'trust',' Scott had repeated once he and Jean were alone. "Not us."
Presently, Jean used her telekinesis to shift herself out of bed so as not to disturb Scott with any additional movement. For one thing, it took him longer to drop off with the state of his ribs, and Jean didn't want to interrupt his rest for his sake. For another, she didn't feel like attention.
Quietly she left the room.
She'd actually noticed Ryder a few times recently. At first Jean thought she was getting paranoid, thinking she heard things and saw movement, until finally she actually recognized Ryder's form going down a crossing hallway.
Jean didn't delude herself into thinking Ryder wasn't aware of her. . .She was probably "watching" everyone in some way or another, like blips on a radar screen.
In the beginning Jean had no thought to engage and it was a mutually agreeable arrangement, each ignoring the other. But then...
It could be said Jean's telepathy was an extension of her empathy--
a girl, the life leaving her as she lay on the side of the road. . .Jean feeling her pain; then as if she were dying herself as she unconsciously connected. The end of a best friend's life, marking the beginning of hers as a mutant . .
--As such, Jean hadn't needed her telepathy to be able to feel the state Ryder was in; the paranoia, the high alert. To feel the toll.
She had missed it the first couple of "crossings", but then every time after it swept over her like a shadow, and something about this night prompted her...So when Jean noticed Ryder exiting the Mansion, this time, she followed.
There was a vague similarity to their last conversation on the grounds, in that here Ryder was, standing facing the free-span of the outdoors, and Jean was walking into that.
Though here there would be no talk meant to convince her of anything. Here there would be only a meeting.
A meeting only telepaths could have, though Jean spoke with her voice. Hesitating at first, as she had no direct answer to Ryder's question. So she didn't give one.
". . .It's hard to feel safe when you see what others don't. When you know what they can't." Jean had seen glimpses of what at the time had been the future; things she couldn't stop. Things she couldn't say.
Ryder, no one could see the world as she did. No one could properly understand reality as she knew it. To an extent this was true of any one. But it was a heightened truth when your mind connected beyond its own walls, and when it was a mind hijacked.
"A mind as a place of refuge and a place of torment. . ." Jean paused by one of the stone pillars supporting the entryway, eyes closing as she lay her hand upon it, "peace at your fingertips. . .and too far away to see." She opened her eyes, staring out. Her eyes appearing focused despite landing on nothing in particular. Her mind at once distant yet present.
Location: Asteroid M Skills: Power Mimicry - Active Power: Chaos Magic Light Manipulation
Hearing Max talk about his family being the Triumvirate- the name meant nothing to OfAll, but what they could -and did- do was another matter. But then, OfAll was still getting mixed vibes when it came to Max and reality. Was he something of a big talker?
He followed up with a response to OfAll's suggestion, and food/energy supply wasn't one of the questions she had about superspeed, so those remained unanswered.
As it would turn out, OfAll's involvement altogether was nixed as things escalated extremely quickly.
The end game was happening now, they all just had to get moving now --to the hanger, and alerting anyone along the way (Max's birds seemed a good aid to that end; magical birds were making a name for themselves on this mission).
Except- Marygold wasn't going in that direction. So then, after a couple moment's deliberation, neither was OfAll.
It neither felt right to disobey Mary's orders, nor to leave her on her own to do whatever she was planning to do. The team would certainly wait until the last possible second for their leader before they evacuated- what if something happened? There were multiple powers OfAll could manifest to (hopefully) get Mary to the evacuation point swiftly or instantly. Even if Mary were able to head there on her own steam after whatever she was intending to do, OfAll could potentially facilitate that.
And if not, so long as she also watched herself and stayed right with Mary, it wouldn't make a difference if it was two of them who had to get back or one. Except if they couldn't in time. . .
"Whatever you're doing, let me help," OfAll committed more than offered, as she fell into hurried stride with Mary. "unless it has something to do with. . .a power I should keep away from. . ?" OfAll's mind had flashed back to the battle on the Mansion grounds, when she saw Mary manifest a fire that looked like a bird.
If Mary had the power that fire brought to mind, maybe she was planning on doing something with it.
Now Cyclops' stare had transitioned into a glare, as evidenced by the increased tenseness of his brow and jaw lines. He had been shifting his attention between Jean and Ryder while they spoke, and though he still could only hear one side of the conversation, he could tell Jean had -for the second time- expressed remorse.
Jean's open heart. One of the defining characteristics of the woman who forever held his, and it was being looked at as nothing more than a deception tactic.
Fine -that was the sole interaction Ryder knew all her years. Still -to count Jean in with those Umbra scientists? Surely even Ryder could perceive some difference.
This time, Jean met Ryder with a level stare throughout Ryder's entire speech. True, the DNA testing hadn't had to be done, but as blood already drawn had been used, it was deemed a harmless and in fact valuable additional measure. Jean could admit certain other considerations, the ones Ryder was elucidating, had gone overlooked.
But it was made just as clear Ryder wasn't going to take anything as anything other than a spin.
While Jean had started this derailed conversation from a desire to make peace with Ryder for Ryder's sake, there was another reason that was underlined now.
Every part of Jean wanted to state, clearly and unmistakably, that Ryder would not harm anyone here. But something about the vibe Ryder gave off made Jean hold this back; lest Ryder take it as an invitation to show these "dumb fucks" exactly how serious she was.
"I'll keep that in mind," Jean stated instead, eying Ryder a moment longer before breaking eye contact to cast Xavier a departing glance; "excuse me."
She decided to go see if she could make any progress with the others they'd brought back from Umbra -rather, with tracking down their families. While records seemed to indicate some parental consent, so far they proved either either out of date or manufactured, as the X-Men hadn't been able to locate any such family from the recorded details.
The lack of mutant presence in the area otherwise had them considering a few situations: the children came from non-mutant families who wanted no ties to them either for the children's own safety, or because they despised them; the families felt they were leaving their children in a safe environment, and had gone to find one of their own; their families were killed. . .Or some mix of all of the above.
Still, the X-Men tried. A few weeks wasn't a long enough time to consider concluding such a search.
Before Jean walked away, she also made eye contact with Scott; an acknowledging / 'see you later' kind of exchange.
Unfortunately -or to be seen what it was- the mix of strong language and "crack someone open and strangle" had managed to do what such unappealing things tend to -catch the ears of innocent youth. The two teenagers and pre-teen just behind Cyclops now had their eyes this way as well, trying to figure out the context.
Air-jet Teen: "I think Dr. Grey just got chewed out." Static Teen: "Who is that kid?"
Stretchy-Kid just watched quietly.
Scott shifted his attention their way. "Someone new, but nevermind right now. She's still settling in. . .Why don't you lob me a shot, after all?"
This time, staring steadily again, Jean did speak up; still keeping her voice low. Her tone wasn't argumentative yet held quiet authority -and a slight edge from her purposeful use of blunt wording.
"We took your blood initially so we wouldn't kill you transfusing an incompatible type, and afterward so you wouldn't die by us treating you with only guesswork. . .I verified your DNA with one of those samples. As for the MRI, we certainly weren't looking for something we never entertained would be there. . ." By this point, the edge dropped off. Jean had found that discovery unsettling.
Her gaze had also dropped, but she met Ryder's eyes once more as she added compassionately: "I'm sorry for causing you more pain." This apology was meant both for what had been done while Ryder was "unconscious", and for the misstep Jean had made a minute ago.
Though the distance between the kids and those on the path was close enough that regular speaking tones could be overheard if the kids had been quiet enough, Static Teen was too self-absorbed and in-the-moment to be interested, and too rowdy not to keep even curious Stretchy Kid from following.
Cyclops, however, positioned a little back from the kids, was making a point to keep aware of what was going on behind him. Jean's words had been spoken in a respectfully low tone, which he didn't hear -but he just managed to catch Ryder's.
Immediately he looked back, controlling himself enough to keep the stare he cast at Ryder from being a glare. Like Jean, it wasn't like he was expecting a cordial response. In fact this fell pretty much in line with expectation. But it got under his skin that someone who Jean had actually been caring for these past three weeks, who she had only empathy for, was speaking so acidically to her.
That being said, Cyclops wasn't about to potentially make things worse by starring daggers at an every-right-to-be-angry kid who could back up their threats if they wanted. . .If. Ryder's reference to the medical "picking" confirmed she'd been awake enough to at least process what was going on. Yet not taking it for what it was, she had taken it.
At this point Cyclops' eyes shifted behind his visor towards Jean. It could've appeared as though he were still staring at Ryder, if not also for a subtle shift of his head.
Contrarily, a first direct impression of Ryder wasn't being cemented in Jean's mind; she was thinking of the one she'd just made -feeling she could've mind-zapped herself in realizing what she just did now, having brought this up.
The way the mental waves she felt from Ryder had shifted...They had been. . ."peaceful" wasn't even close to the right word, but there had been a certain. . ."distance" within them. A promising distance.
And Jean should've kept hers. Ryder was right. How could she not have read this situation correctly? No- how could she have gotten it this wrong?
Even without that full breadth of context, Cyclops could tell Jean wasn't offended by Ryder's response but embarrassed, as he eyed the shift in her body language.
The steadiness of Jean's gaze faltered, while she made to recompose herself; thoroughly put in her place.
"Jean acted in accordance with making sure we didn't overlook anything in your medical treatment, while avoiding further discomfort as well as could be under such circumstances," Xavier spoke up. Not sharply. Yet certainly correctively. Was this completely true, or something of a hypocritical statement? They had, after all, discovered the "something" imbedded deep in Ryder's brain, and confirmed her DNA matched Xavier's.
Yet scans of her entire body was just prudent when 1. -in the immediate concern, nobody had actually witnessed what went down before Ryder finally did back in the forest; she could've had injuries beyond those that were known or readily discernable, and 2. -in the forward thinking concern, what else could her body tell them about her that was imperative to know?
Likewise and to that end, they had needed to draw blood for such reasons as typing to replace what she'd lost, and to understand specifically where she was health-wise.
Jean's attention shifted to Xavier before landing back on Ryder. While she appreciated Charles' support, the truth was Jean could've spoken up in her own defense had she not been of the mind that such a response was unlikely to make a difference.
Though Ryder's comment may've been from the mutations not being on full display in that moment.
The pre-teen could stretch their arms, but hadn't needed to much when they were in the middle, as the older teen who'd thrown the ball hadn't managed a good toss. "I won't be here long," the older teen could be heard saying cockily from their place now in the middle, "I'm much better at catching." They began rubbing their hands together, as if in anticipation.
Older Teen #2: "You can try." They held their hand up as if in prep for a throw, yet made no other arm or hand movement. Instead, the ball was propelled by a jet of air from their palm.
Older Teen #1 reached up, using their built up static electricity to easily attract the ball directly into their own hand. "Ha ha, told ya'."
The older teens swapped positions.
Stretchy Kid: "Catch this!" They stretched their arm unnaturally back, and lobbed the ball as though they were a catapult.
The static electricity teen made a no-way-it-was-gonna'-work attempt even as they joined in with the air-jet teen in protest: "Come on! Didja' have to go that far?!" "Not just 'out of' -bounds obliterated!"
Yet before the ball got lost in the glean of the sky, it could just be seen halting, then coming back down in a gradual manner.
"Maybe you guys should try breaking personal records," Jean commented with a smile, presently levitating the ball in front of the kids until one took it.
Air-jet Teen: "Thanks, Dr. Grey. Not a bad idea." Static Teen: "Better than 'not bad'! You guys throw and I'll grab 'em. Let's start close."
They rearranged themselves into position side-by-side, looking out towards the breadth of the grounds. Though while Air-jet Teen was starting things off, Stretchy Kid twisted around to look at the new kid with Xavier, having noticed them when the three had turned to face Jean.
The older teens' "close" starting round hardly went the length of a person. They noticed Stretchy Kid wasn't paying attention, but themselves didn't seem too interested in a new kid.
Air-jet Teen: "You wanna' lob one, Dr. Grey?"
Jean declined, instead stepping over to Xavier and Ryder.
Static Teen: "Hey Cyclops! How about you? Let's see you hit it!"
Cyclops looked towards Jean, Xavier and Ryder, then stepped towards the kids. "Well then you guys wouldn't have a ball."
Static Teen whacked Stretchy Kid to get his attention back: "C'mon, give 'em another lobber. Let's see if he can get it from as high as Jean could."
"Maybe once you guys are tired. Let's see what you can do a little more."
Meanwhile, Jean spoke to who essentially had been her charge these past three weeks: "Hello, Ryder. It's good to meet you properly. . .I'd like to apologize for barging into your mind earlier, and before then. My telepathy's been off." Jean wasn't going to be surprised if Ryder didn't take this as the truth it was, but whether trusted or not she felt it should be said. "It's possibly from seeing -from feeling how your existence has been."
"I found the secret rooms at Umbra," she added, in case Ryder might think Jean had gone deeper in her mind than she'd realized, which of course Jean hadn't.
"Naively, I thought you might've been opening the connection when I found myself in your mind without intending to be. . ." Her gaze fell briefly at this admittance, but then met Ryder's directly: "I know what it's like to have your mind invaded," Jean's gaze held as she spoke earnestly, "it's one of the last things I'd want to do to another person."
At first, Xavier had an inkling his words weren't chosen carefully enough, Ryder's ongoing suspicion being palpable.
But then...she relented. Her explanation rather reminding him of other youths not wanting to appear as if they were in agreement with the reasonings of an authority figure. He could've smiled, had the situation not the context that it did.
"I believe we were going outside," he answered. Noticing her untouched tea yet making no comment about it. Instead he started leading the way. From up in her attic bedroom / greenhouse, Storm happened to see when Xavier and Ryder exited the Mansion.
There was something she was of the mind to present to Ryder, though she felt it could wait until she returned from being out in nature.
Meanwhile, Jean had paused Scott by their aforementioned tree.
While she was enjoying a walk, a figurative time away from the challenges around them and precious time together, they needed to talk.
"Scott. . .Since I could, you'd wanted to feel our baby move. Now every time you do you take your hand away."
Scott looked away.
"We can't reverse this. . .If you've changed your mind about it-" Scott looked up. It was one of the times Jean wished she could see his eyes -she couldn't read the rest of his face, and he wasn't saying anything. ". . .I need you to get it together."
Scott's gaze averted again. Though just slightly, it prompted Jean to avert hers; misunderstanding. . .disappointed.
"I still want this. . .A family, like anyone else. . . .Except we're not."
Jean looked at him.
"Look at what Ryder's life has been like -why she even has one in the first place. Because one more person, or group, looks at us like weapons they want a piece of or want to understand enough to be able to take down. . . .And what do we know about where Umbra's interests lie beyond the Professor's genes? Maybe they knew."
He looked down again, this time at the place their child was, and actually returned his hand there. Jean shifted with clear mental discomfort as she started thinking over her interactions at Umbra. . .had she been blind to a reality that she was lured there?
Scott went on: "As soon as our baby is born or even earlier, it becomes something anyone else can take possession of." He felt it and did shift his hand, but this time as though to align it more directly overtop. "Each time I feel it reminds me how we're nearing that point, while this whole situation with Ryder makes it feel like we're only further away from peace." His hold became more protective of them both as he slid his hand around her waist,
while Jean set her hand nearly where his had just been. Her other hand coming to his chest; understanding now, her head bowing beside his.
". . .if anyone even has the thought to try taking this away from us." Her fingers curled against his chest, which she felt expand with a deliberate slow, deep breath through the physical pain.
And Scott took her fully in his arms; protective solidarity. It was in this partial embrace that Xavier and Ryder would find them, though not quite come up on them; Ryder and Xavier being on the path, while the shady tree was several yards off it a little further on. As Xavier had suspected, some of the students were out here as well; off the path some distance in the opposite direction.
Xavier noticed his two X-Men, and felt for them for whatever serious conversation he could tell they'd had. Discretely he turned his attention the other way, towards the actions of the 3 young mutants closest in sight. "It looks like some of the children have started a game of 'mutant ball'," Xavier observed allowed both for conversation's sake, and for the privacy of the adults if Ryder's attention had been on them, "essentially whatever regular ball game they choose, with mutations allowed."
The game of choice today seemed to be 'Piggy in the Middle', with a short pre-teen managing to get out of the middle position better than one of the taller teenagers who took it up next.
Location: Asteroid M Skills: Power Mimicry - Active Power: Chaos Magic Light Manipulation
OfAll listened to Guin make a decisive, even impassioned statement before seeming to immediately use her powers to lock onto where Cortez's sister was.
She left, joined by Neil, Lance, Mira and -following the pleasurable penguin guide- Bethany.
OfAll was among those who hung back, keen for the information Magneto could supply to both her question, and the one Max posed after -skipping?!- over to him. Not knowing Guin enough to have any suspicion that she might've done something telepathic earlier -not even aware telepathy could be used in that way- OfAll couldn't fathom what Max was doing, except to suspect, given the previous penguins, he was the type to go for an absurd laugh in the face of a heavy situation.
And heavier it grew by what Max was proposing. OfAll's expression immediately creased with concern and opposition to the idea. Certainly that couldn't be the viable plan in that instance?
She looked to Edus as he asked what seemed to be the implication.
Clearly all this was weighing on him, too, as a following attempt to heal Perry before she left to join Guin, surprisingly resulted in damage, instead. OfAll could see how seriously Edus took this setback. At least his healing worked after that.
Additional relief came from Mary's reasonable assertion that crashing this place into Earth wasn't likely to be the plan, and furthermore, that she wouldn't allow Max to carry out such a plan as he'd suggested. She brought up the BlackBird as another escape option as well.
OfAll's respect for Marygold's leadership was reaffirmed. She seemed to know how to keep her head amidst chaos, and communicated her thoughts effectively.
Following her with her eyes as Mary brought Miranda into the conversation, Miranda's powerset being confirmed, OfAll was highly interested to learn of Retrocognition and that Miranda could project what she saw; similar to Holo's powers in that one respect.
Unlike her little sister's projections, however, which were usually good for a positive vibe -even when she hadn't meant to display them- the ones Miranda presented only served to solidify the disturbance of this situation.
A game? These were two adults, one who honestly looked like she was fresh out of some first-person-shooter, treating life up here like some game? Killing actual people worth points? Going for some uncertain prize?
OfAll was turning this over in her mind while Marygold answered Antoinette.
"They're still not the masterminds-" she started to say at the same time Pietro happened to start speaking, such that her words probably got lost. His caught her attention anyway, "-what?" Her question didn't actually require an answer, and soon Mary was seconding the thought of OfAll manifesting Pietro's powers next.
She didn't want to flat out say 'no', but..."I can try, but part of my manifestation requires I can wrap my head around it, and there are some questions I have about superspeed." She gestured in the direction Pietro went, as if to say 'and my answers just jetted off'. "But maybe I could. . .Maybe telepathy?"
Though she would still come off confidently enough, it would be clear OfAll wasn't completely set on that option, either. Telepathy was one of those powers which were on OfAll's 'Prefer Not' list. The ones she understood well enough to manifest, but had concerns about that made her uncomfortable about doing so. Instead of disclosing that, however, OfAll continued: "If it would be safe, maybe Max could create a circuit with us," she said to Marygold, "maybe including Guin remotely in that," she reasoned a remote circuit may work since it was telepathy they were talking about, "and we could speak into the minds of everyone at once? Or," OfAll now looked towards Magneto, "have you speak to them through our link?"
Relatively calmly though she spoke, OfAll's discomfort was actually betraying her as she grew just a little flushed and had that hot feeling one gets with growing nerves. It wasn't just the prospect of telepathy, but it was bringing up a mutant circuit, bringing chaos powers into this...Did she just share a good idea or a stupid one?
Those who knew the powers in question better than she, could answer that.
OfAll only knew she was willing to do her part even if it meant striding outside of her comfort zone.
[center][i][sub][h3] [color=slategray]It all never happened ~ but in your mind![/color]
[color=black]It all never happened ~ but in your mind![/color][/h3][/sub][/i][/center]
[center]Aspiring Screenwriter. Imagination whiz jumping between many 🌎s.
Self-taught Pic/🎶 Editor, VFX Coordinator & Mixer.
Independent student of 🎞; ever learning.[/center]
[center][b][i][sub][h3][color=#E5E4E2] 'The Reality Is: X-Men woke something up in me.[/color]
[color=#7393B3]'The Reality Is: X-Men woke something up in me.[/color][/h3][/sub]
[sub][h3][color=#E5E4E2]The Reality Is: It's getting me through.'[/color]
[color=#7393B3]The Reality Is: It's getting me through.'[/color][/h3][/sub][/i][/b][/center]
The comic book world is such a rich sandbox! Perhaps none richer than the [i]X-Men[/i] -mutations to mix, slice-of-life elements to turn into anything but ordinary -the lines are drawn but the colours exceed them [i]~care to embark on the e[i]X[/i]ploration with me?[/i]
[center][i]*cue 🎶X-Men Animated Series theme🎼swelling into Fox Movies theme🎵*[/i][/center]
[hr]
[b][sub][h2][color=red]Interest Checks:[/color]
[color=white]Interest Checks:[/color][/h2][/sub][/b]
[url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/191820-deoxys-a-next-gen-x-men-comic-superhero-rp/ooc][b]DeoXys:[/b] A next gen[i] X-Men[/i]/Comic Superhero RP[/url]
[url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/190866-a-cache-of-x-men-interest-checks/ooc][b]Cache of other[/b] [i]X-Men[/i] concepts.[/url]
[hr]
[hider=Writing Sample 1: from X-Men: GenetiX][i]Jean had been intending to search the facility for rooms unseen when she'd received Xavier's message about the injured guards. She'd changed course, but soon it became apparent someone had already had the mind to go check on them; a direction from Becker, possibly, following the radio disturbance.
Jean had decided then to return to medical to aid with the treatment of the guards when they were brought back. Besides a responsibility towards human life, she wanted to see what other damage the girl had caused and what she might further be able to infer about her from the guards.
Given her medical experience, she also didn't want to be missed. If she was going to go looking for places she wasn't meant to be, she wanted to be sure no one would be looking for her.
Ahead of that, however, Jean saw the director himself back in the hallways. She had tried to speak with him, but his impatience was clear despite his feigned accommodation -he apologized for keeping her in the dark, yet simply had too much to attend to after that mass technology glitch to go into anything more about it now.
If she had spoken with Xavier on the details Becker had divulged to him, which it seemed she had, then that was really all Becker could say at this time.
He'd cited privacy again when Jean expressed wanting at least to know this girl's name.
The guards were back in the building at that point, being taken to the Medical Centre, and Jean had fell in line.
There wasn't anything of operative note from them, either, and as Jean assisted with treating their injuries, she'd reflected on the non-conversation with Becker. Jean preferred not to tap people's minds unpermitted, or without dire cause. There was more variance to this rule when it came to enemies, however, and Becker was giving off a certain vibe....She'd thought she might catch a stray thought. It was clear the safety of anyone who encountered this girl was at risk, and through extension the girl's own safety. They weren't sure what all she had planned -if escaping and existing outside the facility was the extent of it, or if she had something else in mind.
All that took precedence over certain privacy. The girl's and Becker's.
However, Jean had found Becker's mind, your could say, shaded. She was sure with a little more time to concentrate she could see something through it, but that hadn't been afforded. She decided to try again after conducting her search of the facility. Gain an advantage by knowing more than he would expect and more of what he held in his mind.
[hr]
The basement of Umbra Biogenetics had been conveyed as a place for old equipment; an office and research space no longer used since a new wing had been built two years ago; generally a place of no matter.
And that's exactly what Jean Grey had found when she went there now, for the first time.
She may not've found the hidden elevator shaft to the [i]sub-[/i]basement, had it not been for the psychic signature she'd been following. An emanation which grew acutely perceptible from the top of stairs, and stronger with every step down.
Finding the shaft became a game of Hot and Cold, with the voice directing her taking the form of psychic imprints; like a handprint somewhere dust has settled.
The existence of this other basement in and of itself didn't register too strongly to someone who, back home, was used to having a hanger full with one or two aircraft at any given time, a war room, medical room and lab, an amplifier for telepaths, and of course where limitless simulations could exist in a limited-size room, all housed beneath your regular 18th century mansion. But the X-Men were open about it within their own walls. Their elevator opened onto a main floor hallway students may tread down in their day-to-day.
As Jean descended down this shaft, it was like walking into increasingly humid air; a growing weight pressing down on her perception.
When she came upon Ryder's room, it didn't feel like one where someone lived, but where they merely [i]survived[/i]; the affect poignant. The psychic signature here, like no where else, added on an emotional weight. There was nothing more to be gleaned from this space. Jean moved on.
She next came to a research room, where her eyes moved over devices not unlike what were used above, or back at the X-Mansion, yet these ones felt deceptive in their familiarity. Jean flinched as someone with a headache may at a sudden noise.
[b]Then she'd found the audio logs. . . .[/b]
While she listened, it was as though what they detailed came to life for Jean, at least in terms of the sensation she was experiencing; dialing up. But the mind working as it can when a person is concentrating deeply, or determined to finish something, the sensation was swept to the back of her mind until the point where it crashed back to the front, unable to be ignored any longer; the point when you realize you should've been paying attention to what your body was trying to tell you.
She managed to get out of the room, back up the shaft, to the main basement's stairs. Then she had to pause. Crouching down with a hand on the wall.
If the recurring experience before had been like psychic nausea, this was like being drugged.
Any processing her mind had to do happened as though through a warped lens: the psychic signatures hanging in the air like pieces of broken mirror, distorting the room; thoughts from the people above freely entering her head, but coming as though from a malfunctioning radio in an echo chamber. Jean closed her eyes. Even her own thoughts felt disembodied.
Her mind shifted to Scott, her hand -in the psychic space of her mind- clutching the handle to "their door", yet it was as though she couldn't get a hold on herself -couldn't manipulate the handle to gain access.
And there was another...a certain sensation that had grown on her, within her, now feeling like cascading wind chimes drifting further apart. She could feel them still connected, still well, yet their sound was beyond her reach.
Opening her eyes, Jean determinedly stood up.
She had been hesitant to attempt stairs feeling like this, when someone else could be affected by a misstep. But she knew the sensations were all mental; she was capable physically. She just had to concentrate on her body instead of her mind for a few moments; had to get out of here.
Managing once more, Jean drew a breath at the landing; then made a beeline for her quarters.
At some point along the way, she vaguely registered Becker down another hallway -he probably saw her- but there was no way she could make a second attempt at him now.
Locking the door once inside her room, Jean drew more collecting breaths, but had to delay hitting the bed to first place another long-distance telephone call.
That done, she curled up with the distress of all she'd just learned and the disturbance of the lingering sensation:
Her mind feeling like a PC made to process something it didn't have the hardware for, while other applications and programs were open. Its performance so hampered that even everyday tasks were met with a stall; impossible for anything to get done prior to a reboot.
Jean knew she wouldn't be able to communicate with Xavier or Scott until then.[/i]
[hr]
While both bodies experienced the startle reflex, and both heads turned in her direction, the girl hadn't exactly achieved her intended effect.
Alert described Cyclops and Professor Xavier's present state rather than scared. The two sitting watchfully, yet still.
Xavier even answered calmly. [color=#7393B3]"I'm pleased to see you're still lively.[/color]
In truth he knew she shouldn't be exerting herself, but he would follow her lead for the moment.
[color=#7393B3]As for where we came from, that would be a school I run in North America, for gifted young people such as yourself. I have made it my life's work to help those with strong powers out of troubled circumstances. As I once did for my friend here, Scott Summers."[/color] He gestured towards him, thinking it may help this young mutant to know that the two before her had, perhaps, some level of understanding on what she was going through. [color=#7393B3]"He now assists me in the running of the school, and along with a select group of my other grown pupils fights to protect those who require it. My name, is Professor Charles Xavier. Perhaps you could tell us yours?"[/color][/hider]
[hider=Writing Sample 2: from X-Men: GenetiX]Cyclops [i]was[/i] questioning Ryder's choice of destination. Why plan so long to escape Umbra just to return to it? If she wanted to flatten the place, it sounded pretty clear she could've done that already, [i]when[/i] she had initially escaped.
He didn't buy it. Something was up.
Either she was going there for a different reason than she'd stated -something she realized she needed that wasn't tech related; she didn't have remote access to?
Or she wasn't going there at all.
It did occur to him that their mini-X-jet was parked some distance in a clearing of the forest beyond the other side of Umbra. Could she have figured that out and wanted to steal their ride?
His sense of direction remained acute, though the more they travelled the more he lost ground on Ryder. He had the impulse to hurry -- he still had the advantage of size and could take much longer strides than she. But he knew better. Hurrying in this terrain at this time of day would only serve to set him back even more.
That's when he felt the ground shake beneath him, heard a sound like something being ripped from the earth at the same time, then heard the first scream, followed by gunfire.
[color=#0096FF]"What the Hell?!"[/color]
Things became oddly clearer some distance up ahead, and Cyclops registered it was because trees had fallen out of view. [color=#0096FF][i]'Is she uprooting the forest, or...?'[/i][/color] For all he knew this could be another mutant. The worst case scenario was it was an innocent local acting our of fear.
More sounds echoed -- quieter and less directly than if they hadn't been in a forest, but enough that Cyclops had a sense he'd be coming up on some sickening scene -- then came the shriek. It brought his mind back to the parking lot when Ryder had been injured. He was sure she'd just been again. [i]This was not good.[/i]
Cyclops did hurry now -- recovering his footing fast each time he lost it. Pain was swept aside as adrenaline flooded in. He needed to get to the scene before --
He froze. Eyes widening behind his visor as mangled screams replaced by something worse registered through his auditory system.
His basic human instincts said to stay firmly planted where he was, but the rest -his X-Men instincts- took over; charging towards danger being just part of the protocol. Moving on, he practically [i]felt[/i] what he was hearing, as though his body knew what his mind couldn't possibly.
[hr]
[i]Some distance away in two separate places, two others were feeling the carnage as well, though decidedly more viscerally.[/i]
She'd been making her way to them since the failed communication, sensing he needed her, and now, Jean Grey screamed, clutching at her head as she felt multiple minds die horrifically in succession, then at once. She didn't even realize she'd fallen until she made herself open her eyes -- going against her instinct to shut out the world by shutting her eyes; she needed to see the space of the world in front of her which was devoid of decimation. But it was no use.
She registered no pain from the fall -- registered nothing but the concoction brought on by her mutant telepathy and natural empathy.
Xavier had gone back to the roads, planning on influencing a mind just enough to have himself driven back to the facility. He had come across a few vehicles indicating the arrival of more townspeople without any current occupants, when he, too, felt the pain of cerebral death on repeat. [color=#7393B3][i]"AA-AH-AHHH!"[/i][/color] His hands, too, clutching at his head.
Separately, the telepaths fought through the pain as though physically sifting through the bodies to try and locate one in particular.
He couldn't be among them -[i]- he couldn't be.[/i]
[hr]
The townspeople were bold, but not that bold.
If the gruesome sounds coming from the altered forest weren't enough, the insane amount of gunfire certainly was.
They weren't joining this fray.
One, however, perhaps with the panicked thinking of [i]'is it following me?!'[/i], perhaps by sheer accident, or perhaps getting off a calculated shot before turning tail to collect their quarry another day, fired off another of those enhanced net guns.
This one [i]did[/i] ensnare Cyclops, who went down painfully, an unsettling warmth bubbling out in all the places where he'd been shot before by Ryder, indicative of the stitching and packing no longer holding. Only he wasn't registering that just now. He had something else to worry about.
The netting had managed to bind one hand tightly in the very position required for his visor to engage. After a few scarce seconds of blasting apart the earth Cyclops shut his eyes, having to act blind until he could extricate his hand.
[list]
[*]The good news was: he had blasted apart some of the net, as well.
[*]The bad news was: the blasting of the already disturbed earth saw to the felling of another tree.[/list]
It [b][i]CRASHED[/i][/b] down onto another, branches breaking. A thick one [i][b]SLAMMING[/b][/i] into an incline below -- one Cyclops had only minutes before came down in a scarcely controlled skid -- the branch now careening down it.
If that branch had merely rolled from the higher elevation, he could've heard it and blasted it away. As it came with the noise of coniferous impact and breakage, however, he couldn't sort out what he was hearing in time.
Cyclops had managed to stand up.
This was one time he should've stayed down.
A yell was cut off as the air rushed out of his lungs -- the branch had slammed into him -- slammed him back into the thick trunk of another tree, and a series of tell-tale [i][b]CRRRKKKKHH[/b]s[/i] resounded.
The branch fell away and so did he, finding himself in a lethal cycle --body desperate for air, but every breath [i][b]CUT[/b][/i], the pain [i][b]SEARED[/b][/i], breathing felt perversely like the absolute [i][b]WRONG[/b][/i] thing to do --that he would tear his lungs to ribbons if he expanded them against his splintered chest.
But he was so in need.
He lay literally gasping for his life.
His mind clouded over....
[i]And as it would happen, so did the surrounding area.[/i]
Fog permeated the woods so if any foolhardy or militant souls were left, they'd be absolutely blind. The fog was oddly sectional, however, and where bodies lay it was clearer.
Cyclops, no longer blasting, had a vague, visual registration of the scene before his faculties fell further away.
[i]....Jean.
He'd thought of her. He'd seen her....
No. She shouldn't have been there. No where near this.
He felt his lungs fill with a breath he hadn't taken.
They filled gradually, deeply, painfully.
Yet they didn't shred.
Another...
...Familiar lips on his.[/i]
[center]* * * *
[i]Three Weeks Later[/i][/center]
[color=yellow][i]"I [u]still[/u] say, it doesn't matter who she is. That scene in the forest looked like a scene [u]I[/u] would've left. Only [u]worse[/u]. I know how you two feel about this sorta' thing, but you let Xavier put blocks in [u]your[/u] mind when your power was only [u]considered[/u] too dangerous. I mean come on -[u]Scott[/u] was nearly among those in the pile out there."[/i][/color] concluded the gruff voice of Wolverine.
Jean didn't need to be reminded -of the scene or how close she came to losing Scott. Truly his only saving grace might've been that he hadn't been [i]right there[/i] when it all went down; there was no entertaining the idea that Ryder would've discriminated. [color=#DAA06D][i]"That carnage was a [u]reactionary[/u] result,"[/i][/color] Jean pointed out in a quiet, yet authoritative voice, [color=#DAA06D][i]"Ryder felt cornered. Threatened. She's been a lab experiment all her life. If either myself or Charles try anything in her mind, she might react on an instinctive level to the exact result we're trying to avoid."[/i] [/color]
[color=yellow][i]"She's been [u]unconscious[/u]. And the longer we wait the less she's probably gonna' stay that way."[/i][/color]
[color=#DAA06D][i]"We're not [u]waiting[/u], Logan."[/i][/color]
[color=yellow][i]"Right. We've just been having regular round table discussions about how exactly we should act. Same difference."[/i][/color]
[b][color=#4169E1][i]"Not to forget, she may not be quite as unconscious as she's seemed,"[/i][/color][/b] came the reasoning voice of X-Men's most hirsute; The Beast, [b][color=#4169E1][i]"though, as far as we are aware, he has been proceeding without evidential certainty on the matter, Charles has been proceeding on that thought, none-the-less. So far the place hasn't come crashing down around us."[/i][/color][/b]
[color=yellow][i]"[u]So far[/u]. If you ask me, Chuck is too close to this to base anything around. . .At least he's sound enough on the subject to keep her in the Danger Room."[/i][/color]
And so that's where Ryder had been since the X-Men arrived on the unspeakable scene and jetted her, Cyclops, Jean Grey and Xavier back to the Mansion.
The Danger Room, some distance down the basement hallway from the Ready Room where the X-Men were having yet another meeting on the matter of "Ryder Xavier".
Despite Ryder's extensive injuries, she hadn't been housed in the Medical Lab for a moment. It was deemed too risky, especially as Cyclops would be recovering there. Not only was the Danger Room the most fortified of the entire building, being that the X-Men could train at realistic intensity, but the simulation technology it contained could also be utilized -and was- to make the environment appear more welcoming.
The very last thing they wanted was for Ryder to think she had just traded one captive situation for another.
They made the room look like one of the Mansion's bedrooms, complete with a window. That being said, they didn't want the gesture to be misconstrued as some ulterior motive illusion, and so they lowered the realism of the sim so it did appear, more or less, holographic. Ryder would be able to grasp her setting was manufactured, and they would be agreeable to changing it if she didn't appreciate their aesthetic.
They didn't delude [i]themselves[/i] either --knowing full well once she was awake, it likely wouldn't take long for her to get a technic read on the place and be able to adjust the simulation at will. But at least anything she could do with it would be contained within this space. Beyond it, they had removed anything they thought she could use as a weapon, going analog where possible.
A return trip had also been made to Umbra within these past three weeks, with the intent to shut the place down. They were unable to locate Becker, and the only hidden rooms they found were the ones Jean already came across. But they had seen to absorbing the young charges into Xavier's institute, and had recovered some things, including -thanks to Beast's eye for advanced technology- a bit of the material the guards had had which blocked Ryder's powers. Beast had what amounted to an educated idea that's what it could do, anyway, and was currently in the midst of understanding it so he could do something with it himself.
In the meantime, Xavier had been making regular visits to the Danger Room to visit his daughter.
And for at least the past week, he had been making mental visits, too. Even in true coma, a mind was still active where the body wasn't.
He took it slow. Like a new neighbour making themselves known in no greater way than merely being outside, doing things in their own yard. Smiling when they'd catch your eye, but not making an attempt to draw you into conversation.
Today, Xavier decided to knock politely on the door, as for the first time the curtains hadn't been drawn. He had been able to see a few scenes within the mental "house" -Ryder seemingly going over her days at the Mansion so far.
They hadn't consisted of much beyond what care someone in her state would require, which was mostly carried out by Jean both because, despite the odd sensations she'd experienced, they felt she was best suited power-wise to be in such a position -a decision Cyclops couldn't argue, though he felt uneasy about each time Jean went in- and because from what Jean understood from the facility, it never seemed like Ryder was dealt with by anyone but males. They thought Jean would feel like a less hostile presence to her. As well, Jean had her level of empathy gained from the knowledge of Ryder's life.
Her husband's discomfort notwithstanding, Jean took the position willingly and, truth be told, had made similar "visitation attempts" to Xavier's, from a place of wanting to understand this girl. Both her pain, and how she could manage the degree she inflicted on others. That scene in the forest was the very embodiment of blind rage, and Jean wondered how Ryder's mind was processing that; if it even realized. But she had been treading even more carefully than Xavier.
Xavier was cognizant of Jean "stepping" here, like noticing remnants of footprints on the sidewalk. He had to smile at this. Though, he didn't perceive she had gotten as far as he now had.
This apparent fact pleased him all the more.[/hider]
[hider=Writing Sample 3: from Our Mind's Shadowed Hallways]Cool. Reserved.
Scott Summers a.k.a. Cyclops, leader of the X-Men, was often misunderstood as not caring when in fact he cared deeply.
So serious all the time because nothing was a throw-away to him; everything mattered.
Chief among it all, Jean Grey.
[i]The center of his world[/i].
She had seen something past his dour exterior, had been open enough to receive him that he could open up to her; show a side to her few, maybe only she, knew.
[i][b]Had[/b][/i].
[i][b]Knew[/b][/i].
Everything was changed now. All of their history ceasing to exist in Jean's mind,
[i]from a series of seemingly insignificant actions which turned into a majorly significant circumstance.[/i]
Sometimes Scott felt his entire life was defined this way.
[i]Four people climb into a cockpit. Strap in. Take off. . .[/i]
The next thing he knew he was living as a brain damaged, unwanted orphan.
[i]Three kids get into a fight. One never gets up. One can never go back. . .[/i]
Next thing he knew he was a mutant, and [i]that [/i]defined everything about his life going forward.
[i]Was that why. . ?
Two X-Men undertake a mission. Patrol a sector. Cross an invisible line. . .[/i]
Next thing, he was waking up in the Med Bay, his head feeling. . .[i]strange[/i].
And Jean woke up feeling he was a stranger.
She hadn't recognized the X Mansion, yet somehow had vague memories of Charles Xavier, and fractionally remembered the others. Ororo Munroe, Hank McCoy, Logan, etc. somehow she knew them, yet not Storm, The Beast, Wolverine -the X-Men as a whole, her place as one.
Was that why she remembered nothing of Scott Summers? He didn't know who he was if not Cyclops, leader of the X-Men. [i]But with Jean. . .[/i]
Was this proof he wasn't, in fact, anything else?
Taken with everything, that couldn't make sense.
Jean had no memory that she was even a mutant, but it wasn't as simple as saying she lost all memories pertaining to that, if she still recalled everyone else in some way. .
. .[i]none[/i] of them she would've met had she not been a mutant. Scott needed things to make sense, and so little of this did.
What had even happened? The other X-Men had been patrolling other sectors. No one saw.
They had to have been hit by something. . .
A subsequent probe of the area with Cerebro bore no residual signature of another mutant, no device had been located and with the aforementioned absence of signature, no one could've come to dispose of one.
. . .Xavier worked out they had in fact [i]encountered[/i] something, something that existed on a psychic plain- explaining why Jean was affected so drastically and Cyclops, comparatively nil.
So what was it? What was this? Coincidental? [i]Planned?[/i] Scott's money was on the latter, but then who was behind it?
Was this their intended result? [i]Or was there more to the plan he needed to watch out for. . ?[/i]
He sighed as he finished crossing the hallways. It was already taking a toll, what he had to deal with in his head. .
. .[i]that strange sensation growing stronger. [/i]
Which is why Scott now stood outside the presently closed door to Xavier's office.
And the voices he heard inside is why he now stood [i]paused[/i] outside that door.
Underway inside, rather, sounding like it had just concluded, was another of Xavier's psychic therapy sessions with Jean.
So far there'd been no breaththroughs. . .it didn't sound like one was made this time, either.
. . .Scott couldn't help eavesdropping.
He was finding it difficult figuring out how to be around her now. Where to start [i]over[/i].
Scott didn't want to get in Jean's way of remembering "herself". Desperate though he was for her to remember "them", he didn't want her to feel pressured to prioritize that. .
. .Events had a sequence. It wasn't for him to jump the line.
That's what he partially convinced himself of, anyway.
[i]But there was also the matter of. . . . .[/i][/hider]
[hr]
[center][b][i]X-Men Envisionings: one passionate fan's riff on the FOX[/i] X-Men [i]franchise.
Call it a fanfiction, call it what you will, but [u]don't miss out[/u]!![/i][/b][/center]
[center][sub][h2][color=#DAA06D][b]Part 2[/b][/color][color=#0096FF] [i]of 2nd Edition[/i][/color][color=#DAA06D][b] Now Released![/b][/color]
[color=#0096FF][b]Part 3[/b][/color][color=#DAA06D] [i]of 2nd Edition[/i][/color][color=#0096FF][b] Now Released![/b][/color][/h2][/sub]
[b]https://telkjplang.wixsite.com/xmenenvisionings/post/envisionings-1-2nd-edition-part-3[/b]
[sub][h3][color=#DAA06D][i] Back and[/i][/color][color=#DAA06D] [i]better than ever![/i][/color]
[color=#0096FF][i]Back and[/i][/color][color=#0096FF] [i]better than ever![/i][/color][/h3][/sub][/center]
[center][sub][h3][color=#E5E4E2][b][i]Consider becoming an X-Envisioner yourself:[/i][/b][/color]
[color=#7393B3][b][i]Consider becoming an X-Envisioner yourself:[/i][/b][/color][/h3][/sub]
https://telkjplang.wixsite.com/xmenenvisionings/post/seeking-collaborators[/center]
[hr]
[center][b][sub][h3][color=blue]The [i]X-Men[/i] continues to be this e[b]x[/b]cellent odyssey[/color]
[color=yellow] The [i]X-Men[/i] continues to be this e[b]x[/b]cellent odyssey[/color][/h3][/sub]
[sub][h3][color=blue] [i]Where ever it takes me.[/i][/color]
[color=yellow][i]Where ever it takes me.[/i][/color][/h3][/sub][/b][/center]
[center][i][b]X-Men Envisionings[/b], a sector of [/i]
[i][sub][h2][b][color=silver]TechtraColour[/color][/b]
[color=hotpink]Te[/color][color=chartreuse]cht[/color][color=cyan]raC[/color][color=purple]olo[/color][color=hotpink]ur[/color][/h2][/sub][/i]
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=================[/center]
<div style="white-space:pre-wrap;"><div class="bb-center"><span class="bb-i"><sub><div class="bb-h3"><font color="slategray">It all never happened ~ but in your mind!</font><br><font color="black">It all never happened ~ but in your mind!</font></div></sub></span></div><br><div class="bb-center">Aspiring Screenwriter. Imagination whiz jumping between many 🌎s. <br>Self-taught Pic/🎶 Editor, VFX Coordinator & Mixer. <br>Independent student of 🎞; ever learning.</div><br><br><div class="bb-center"><span class="bb-b"><span class="bb-i"><sub><div class="bb-h3"><font color="#e5e4e2"> 'The Reality Is: X-Men woke something up in me.</font><br><font color="#7393b3">'The Reality Is: X-Men woke something up in me.</font></div></sub><br><sub><div class="bb-h3"><font color="#e5e4e2">The Reality Is: It's getting me through.'</font><br> <font color="#7393b3">The Reality Is: It's getting me through.'</font></div></sub></span></span></div><br><br>The comic book world is such a rich sandbox! Perhaps none richer than the <span class="bb-i">X-Men</span> -mutations to mix, slice-of-life elements to turn into anything but ordinary -the lines are drawn but the colours exceed them <span class="bb-i">~care to embark on the e<span class="bb-i">X</span>ploration with me?</span><br><br><div class="bb-center"><span class="bb-i">*cue 🎶X-Men Animated Series theme🎼swelling into Fox Movies theme🎵*</span></div><br><br><hr class="bb-hr"><br><span class="bb-b"><sub><div class="bb-h2"><font color="red">Interest Checks:</font><br> <font color="white">Interest Checks:</font></div></sub></span><br><a href="https://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/191820-deoxys-a-next-gen-x-men-comic-superhero-rp/ooc"><span class="bb-b">DeoXys:</span> A next gen<span class="bb-i"> X-Men</span>/Comic Superhero RP</a><br><br><a href="https://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/190866-a-cache-of-x-men-interest-checks/ooc"><span class="bb-b">Cache of other</span> <span class="bb-i">X-Men</span> concepts.</a><br><br><hr class="bb-hr"><br><div class="hider-panel"><div class="hider-heading"><button type="button" class="btn btn-default btn-xs hider-button" data-name="Writing Sample 1: from X-Men: GenetiX">Writing Sample 1: from X-Men: GenetiX [+]</button></div><div class="hider-body" style="display: none"><span class="bb-i">Jean had been intending to search the facility for rooms unseen when she'd received Xavier's message about the injured guards. She'd changed course, but soon it became apparent someone had already had the mind to go check on them; a direction from Becker, possibly, following the radio disturbance.<br><br>Jean had decided then to return to medical to aid with the treatment of the guards when they were brought back. Besides a responsibility towards human life, she wanted to see what other damage the girl had caused and what she might further be able to infer about her from the guards. <br><br>Given her medical experience, she also didn't want to be missed. If she was going to go looking for places she wasn't meant to be, she wanted to be sure no one would be looking for her.<br><br>Ahead of that, however, Jean saw the director himself back in the hallways. She had tried to speak with him, but his impatience was clear despite his feigned accommodation -he apologized for keeping her in the dark, yet simply had too much to attend to after that mass technology glitch to go into anything more about it now. <br>If she had spoken with Xavier on the details Becker had divulged to him, which it seemed she had, then that was really all Becker could say at this time.<br><br>He'd cited privacy again when Jean expressed wanting at least to know this girl's name.<br><br>The guards were back in the building at that point, being taken to the Medical Centre, and Jean had fell in line.<br><br>There wasn't anything of operative note from them, either, and as Jean assisted with treating their injuries, she'd reflected on the non-conversation with Becker. Jean preferred not to tap people's minds unpermitted, or without dire cause. There was more variance to this rule when it came to enemies, however, and Becker was giving off a certain vibe....She'd thought she might catch a stray thought. It was clear the safety of anyone who encountered this girl was at risk, and through extension the girl's own safety. They weren't sure what all she had planned -if escaping and existing outside the facility was the extent of it, or if she had something else in mind.<br><br>All that took precedence over certain privacy. The girl's and Becker's.<br>However, Jean had found Becker's mind, your could say, shaded. She was sure with a little more time to concentrate she could see something through it, but that hadn't been afforded. She decided to try again after conducting her search of the facility. Gain an advantage by knowing more than he would expect and more of what he held in his mind.<br><br><hr class="bb-hr"><br>The basement of Umbra Biogenetics had been conveyed as a place for old equipment; an office and research space no longer used since a new wing had been built two years ago; generally a place of no matter.<br><br>And that's exactly what Jean Grey had found when she went there now, for the first time. <br><br>She may not've found the hidden elevator shaft to the <span class="bb-i">sub-</span>basement, had it not been for the psychic signature she'd been following. An emanation which grew acutely perceptible from the top of stairs, and stronger with every step down.<br><br>Finding the shaft became a game of Hot and Cold, with the voice directing her taking the form of psychic imprints; like a handprint somewhere dust has settled.<br><br>The existence of this other basement in and of itself didn't register too strongly to someone who, back home, was used to having a hanger full with one or two aircraft at any given time, a war room, medical room and lab, an amplifier for telepaths, and of course where limitless simulations could exist in a limited-size room, all housed beneath your regular 18th century mansion. But the X-Men were open about it within their own walls. Their elevator opened onto a main floor hallway students may tread down in their day-to-day.<br><br>As Jean descended down this shaft, it was like walking into increasingly humid air; a growing weight pressing down on her perception.<br><br>When she came upon Ryder's room, it didn't feel like one where someone lived, but where they merely <span class="bb-i">survived</span>; the affect poignant. The psychic signature here, like no where else, added on an emotional weight. There was nothing more to be gleaned from this space. Jean moved on.<br><br>She next came to a research room, where her eyes moved over devices not unlike what were used above, or back at the X-Mansion, yet these ones felt deceptive in their familiarity. Jean flinched as someone with a headache may at a sudden noise. <br><br><span class="bb-b">Then she'd found the audio logs. . . .</span><br><br>While she listened, it was as though what they detailed came to life for Jean, at least in terms of the sensation she was experiencing; dialing up. But the mind working as it can when a person is concentrating deeply, or determined to finish something, the sensation was swept to the back of her mind until the point where it crashed back to the front, unable to be ignored any longer; the point when you realize you should've been paying attention to what your body was trying to tell you.<br><br>She managed to get out of the room, back up the shaft, to the main basement's stairs. Then she had to pause. Crouching down with a hand on the wall. <br><br>If the recurring experience before had been like psychic nausea, this was like being drugged. <br>Any processing her mind had to do happened as though through a warped lens: the psychic signatures hanging in the air like pieces of broken mirror, distorting the room; thoughts from the people above freely entering her head, but coming as though from a malfunctioning radio in an echo chamber. Jean closed her eyes. Even her own thoughts felt disembodied.<br><br>Her mind shifted to Scott, her hand -in the psychic space of her mind- clutching the handle to "their door", yet it was as though she couldn't get a hold on herself -couldn't manipulate the handle to gain access.<br><br>And there was another...a certain sensation that had grown on her, within her, now feeling like cascading wind chimes drifting further apart. She could feel them still connected, still well, yet their sound was beyond her reach.<br><br>Opening her eyes, Jean determinedly stood up.<br><br>She had been hesitant to attempt stairs feeling like this, when someone else could be affected by a misstep. But she knew the sensations were all mental; she was capable physically. She just had to concentrate on her body instead of her mind for a few moments; had to get out of here.<br><br>Managing once more, Jean drew a breath at the landing; then made a beeline for her quarters.<br><br>At some point along the way, she vaguely registered Becker down another hallway -he probably saw her- but there was no way she could make a second attempt at him now. <br><br>Locking the door once inside her room, Jean drew more collecting breaths, but had to delay hitting the bed to first place another long-distance telephone call. <br><br>That done, she curled up with the distress of all she'd just learned and the disturbance of the lingering sensation:<br>Her mind feeling like a PC made to process something it didn't have the hardware for, while other applications and programs were open. Its performance so hampered that even everyday tasks were met with a stall; impossible for anything to get done prior to a reboot.<br><br>Jean knew she wouldn't be able to communicate with Xavier or Scott until then.</span><br><br><hr class="bb-hr"><br>While both bodies experienced the startle reflex, and both heads turned in her direction, the girl hadn't exactly achieved her intended effect. <br>Alert described Cyclops and Professor Xavier's present state rather than scared. The two sitting watchfully, yet still.<br><br>Xavier even answered calmly. <font color="#7393b3">"I'm pleased to see you're still lively.</font> <br>In truth he knew she shouldn't be exerting herself, but he would follow her lead for the moment. <br><font color="#7393b3">As for where we came from, that would be a school I run in North America, for gifted young people such as yourself. I have made it my life's work to help those with strong powers out of troubled circumstances. As I once did for my friend here, Scott Summers."</font> He gestured towards him, thinking it may help this young mutant to know that the two before her had, perhaps, some level of understanding on what she was going through. <font color="#7393b3">"He now assists me in the running of the school, and along with a select group of my other grown pupils fights to protect those who require it. My name, is Professor Charles Xavier. Perhaps you could tell us yours?"</font></div></div><br><div class="hider-panel"><div class="hider-heading"><button type="button" class="btn btn-default btn-xs hider-button" data-name="Writing Sample 2: from X-Men: GenetiX">Writing Sample 2: from X-Men: GenetiX [+]</button></div><div class="hider-body" style="display: none">Cyclops <span class="bb-i">was</span> questioning Ryder's choice of destination. Why plan so long to escape Umbra just to return to it? If she wanted to flatten the place, it sounded pretty clear she could've done that already, <span class="bb-i">when</span> she had initially escaped. <br><br>He didn't buy it. Something was up.<br>Either she was going there for a different reason than she'd stated -something she realized she needed that wasn't tech related; she didn't have remote access to? <br>Or she wasn't going there at all.<br><br>It did occur to him that their mini-X-jet was parked some distance in a clearing of the forest beyond the other side of Umbra. Could she have figured that out and wanted to steal their ride? <br><br>His sense of direction remained acute, though the more they travelled the more he lost ground on Ryder. He had the impulse to hurry -- he still had the advantage of size and could take much longer strides than she. But he knew better. Hurrying in this terrain at this time of day would only serve to set him back even more.<br><br>That's when he felt the ground shake beneath him, heard a sound like something being ripped from the earth at the same time, then heard the first scream, followed by gunfire. <br><br><font color="#0096ff">"What the Hell?!"</font><br><br>Things became oddly clearer some distance up ahead, and Cyclops registered it was because trees had fallen out of view. <font color="#0096ff"><span class="bb-i">'Is she uprooting the forest, or...?'</span></font> For all he knew this could be another mutant. The worst case scenario was it was an innocent local acting our of fear. <br><br>More sounds echoed -- quieter and less directly than if they hadn't been in a forest, but enough that Cyclops had a sense he'd be coming up on some sickening scene -- then came the shriek. It brought his mind back to the parking lot when Ryder had been injured. He was sure she'd just been again. <span class="bb-i">This was not good.</span><br><br>Cyclops did hurry now -- recovering his footing fast each time he lost it. Pain was swept aside as adrenaline flooded in. He needed to get to the scene before -- <br>He froze. Eyes widening behind his visor as mangled screams replaced by something worse registered through his auditory system.<br><br>His basic human instincts said to stay firmly planted where he was, but the rest -his X-Men instincts- took over; charging towards danger being just part of the protocol. Moving on, he practically <span class="bb-i">felt</span> what he was hearing, as though his body knew what his mind couldn't possibly.<br><hr class="bb-hr"><br><span class="bb-i">Some distance away in two separate places, two others were feeling the carnage as well, though decidedly more viscerally.</span><br><br>She'd been making her way to them since the failed communication, sensing he needed her, and now, Jean Grey screamed, clutching at her head as she felt multiple minds die horrifically in succession, then at once. She didn't even realize she'd fallen until she made herself open her eyes -- going against her instinct to shut out the world by shutting her eyes; she needed to see the space of the world in front of her which was devoid of decimation. But it was no use. <br><br>She registered no pain from the fall -- registered nothing but the concoction brought on by her mutant telepathy and natural empathy.<br><br>Xavier had gone back to the roads, planning on influencing a mind just enough to have himself driven back to the facility. He had come across a few vehicles indicating the arrival of more townspeople without any current occupants, when he, too, felt the pain of cerebral death on repeat. <font color="#7393b3"><span class="bb-i">"AA-AH-AHHH!"</span></font> His hands, too, clutching at his head.<br><br>Separately, the telepaths fought through the pain as though physically sifting through the bodies to try and locate one in particular.<br><br>He couldn't be among them -<span class="bb-i">- he couldn't be.</span><br><hr class="bb-hr"><br>The townspeople were bold, but not that bold.<br>If the gruesome sounds coming from the altered forest weren't enough, the insane amount of gunfire certainly was. <br><br>They weren't joining this fray.<br><br>One, however, perhaps with the panicked thinking of <span class="bb-i">'is it following me?!'</span>, perhaps by sheer accident, or perhaps getting off a calculated shot before turning tail to collect their quarry another day, fired off another of those enhanced net guns.<br><br>This one <span class="bb-i">did</span> ensnare Cyclops, who went down painfully, an unsettling warmth bubbling out in all the places where he'd been shot before by Ryder, indicative of the stitching and packing no longer holding. Only he wasn't registering that just now. He had something else to worry about.<br><br>The netting had managed to bind one hand tightly in the very position required for his visor to engage. After a few scarce seconds of blasting apart the earth Cyclops shut his eyes, having to act blind until he could extricate his hand. <br><br><ul class="bb-list" style="white-space: normal;"><li>The good news was: he had blasted apart some of the net, as well.</li><li>The bad news was: the blasting of the already disturbed earth saw to the felling of another tree.</li></ul><br><br>It <span class="bb-b"><span class="bb-i">CRASHED</span></span> down onto another, branches breaking. A thick one <span class="bb-i"><span class="bb-b">SLAMMING</span></span> into an incline below -- one Cyclops had only minutes before came down in a scarcely controlled skid -- the branch now careening down it.<br><br>If that branch had merely rolled from the higher elevation, he could've heard it and blasted it away. As it came with the noise of coniferous impact and breakage, however, he couldn't sort out what he was hearing in time.<br><br>Cyclops had managed to stand up.<br>This was one time he should've stayed down.<br><br>A yell was cut off as the air rushed out of his lungs -- the branch had slammed into him -- slammed him back into the thick trunk of another tree, and a series of tell-tale <span class="bb-i"><span class="bb-b">CRRRKKKKHH</span>s</span> resounded.<br><br>The branch fell away and so did he, finding himself in a lethal cycle --body desperate for air, but every breath <span class="bb-i"><span class="bb-b">CUT</span></span>, the pain <span class="bb-i"><span class="bb-b">SEARED</span></span>, breathing felt perversely like the absolute <span class="bb-i"><span class="bb-b">WRONG</span></span> thing to do --that he would tear his lungs to ribbons if he expanded them against his splintered chest.<br><br>But he was so in need.<br><br>He lay literally gasping for his life.<br><br>His mind clouded over....<br><br><span class="bb-i">And as it would happen, so did the surrounding area.</span><br><br>Fog permeated the woods so if any foolhardy or militant souls were left, they'd be absolutely blind. The fog was oddly sectional, however, and where bodies lay it was clearer.<br><br>Cyclops, no longer blasting, had a vague, visual registration of the scene before his faculties fell further away.<br><br><span class="bb-i">....Jean.<br>He'd thought of her. He'd seen her....<br>No. She shouldn't have been there. No where near this.<br>He felt his lungs fill with a breath he hadn't taken.<br>They filled gradually, deeply, painfully. <br>Yet they didn't shred.<br>Another...<br>...Familiar lips on his.</span><br><br><div class="bb-center">* * * *<br><span class="bb-i">Three Weeks Later</span></div><br><br><font color="yellow"><span class="bb-i">"I <span class="bb-u">still</span> say, it doesn't matter who she is. That scene in the forest looked like a scene <span class="bb-u">I</span> would've left. Only <span class="bb-u">worse</span>. I know how you two feel about this sorta' thing, but you let Xavier put blocks in <span class="bb-u">your</span> mind when your power was only <span class="bb-u">considered</span> too dangerous. I mean come on -<span class="bb-u">Scott</span> was nearly among those in the pile out there."</span></font> concluded the gruff voice of Wolverine.<br><br>Jean didn't need to be reminded -of the scene or how close she came to losing Scott. Truly his only saving grace might've been that he hadn't been <span class="bb-i">right there</span> when it all went down; there was no entertaining the idea that Ryder would've discriminated. <font color="#daa06d"><span class="bb-i">"That carnage was a <span class="bb-u">reactionary</span> result,"</span></font> Jean pointed out in a quiet, yet authoritative voice, <font color="#daa06d"><span class="bb-i">"Ryder felt cornered. Threatened. She's been a lab experiment all her life. If either myself or Charles try anything in her mind, she might react on an instinctive level to the exact result we're trying to avoid."</span> </font><br><br><font color="yellow"><span class="bb-i">"She's been <span class="bb-u">unconscious</span>. And the longer we wait the less she's probably gonna' stay that way."</span></font><br><br><font color="#daa06d"><span class="bb-i">"We're not <span class="bb-u">waiting</span>, Logan."</span></font><br><br><font color="yellow"><span class="bb-i">"Right. We've just been having regular round table discussions about how exactly we should act. Same difference."</span></font><br><br><span class="bb-b"><font color="#4169e1"><span class="bb-i">"Not to forget, she may not be quite as unconscious as she's seemed,"</span></font></span> came the reasoning voice of X-Men's most hirsute; The Beast, <span class="bb-b"><font color="#4169e1"><span class="bb-i">"though, as far as we are aware, he has been proceeding without evidential certainty on the matter, Charles has been proceeding on that thought, none-the-less. So far the place hasn't come crashing down around us."</span></font></span><br><br><font color="yellow"><span class="bb-i">"<span class="bb-u">So far</span>. If you ask me, Chuck is too close to this to base anything around. . .At least he's sound enough on the subject to keep her in the Danger Room."</span></font><br><br>And so that's where Ryder had been since the X-Men arrived on the unspeakable scene and jetted her, Cyclops, Jean Grey and Xavier back to the Mansion. <br>The Danger Room, some distance down the basement hallway from the Ready Room where the X-Men were having yet another meeting on the matter of "Ryder Xavier".<br><br>Despite Ryder's extensive injuries, she hadn't been housed in the Medical Lab for a moment. It was deemed too risky, especially as Cyclops would be recovering there. Not only was the Danger Room the most fortified of the entire building, being that the X-Men could train at realistic intensity, but the simulation technology it contained could also be utilized -and was- to make the environment appear more welcoming.<br><br>The very last thing they wanted was for Ryder to think she had just traded one captive situation for another.<br><br>They made the room look like one of the Mansion's bedrooms, complete with a window. That being said, they didn't want the gesture to be misconstrued as some ulterior motive illusion, and so they lowered the realism of the sim so it did appear, more or less, holographic. Ryder would be able to grasp her setting was manufactured, and they would be agreeable to changing it if she didn't appreciate their aesthetic. <br><br>They didn't delude <span class="bb-i">themselves</span> either --knowing full well once she was awake, it likely wouldn't take long for her to get a technic read on the place and be able to adjust the simulation at will. But at least anything she could do with it would be contained within this space. Beyond it, they had removed anything they thought she could use as a weapon, going analog where possible. <br><br>A return trip had also been made to Umbra within these past three weeks, with the intent to shut the place down. They were unable to locate Becker, and the only hidden rooms they found were the ones Jean already came across. But they had seen to absorbing the young charges into Xavier's institute, and had recovered some things, including -thanks to Beast's eye for advanced technology- a bit of the material the guards had had which blocked Ryder's powers. Beast had what amounted to an educated idea that's what it could do, anyway, and was currently in the midst of understanding it so he could do something with it himself.<br><br>In the meantime, Xavier had been making regular visits to the Danger Room to visit his daughter.<br>And for at least the past week, he had been making mental visits, too. Even in true coma, a mind was still active where the body wasn't.<br><br>He took it slow. Like a new neighbour making themselves known in no greater way than merely being outside, doing things in their own yard. Smiling when they'd catch your eye, but not making an attempt to draw you into conversation. <br><br>Today, Xavier decided to knock politely on the door, as for the first time the curtains hadn't been drawn. He had been able to see a few scenes within the mental "house" -Ryder seemingly going over her days at the Mansion so far.<br><br>They hadn't consisted of much beyond what care someone in her state would require, which was mostly carried out by Jean both because, despite the odd sensations she'd experienced, they felt she was best suited power-wise to be in such a position -a decision Cyclops couldn't argue, though he felt uneasy about each time Jean went in- and because from what Jean understood from the facility, it never seemed like Ryder was dealt with by anyone but males. They thought Jean would feel like a less hostile presence to her. As well, Jean had her level of empathy gained from the knowledge of Ryder's life.<br><br>Her husband's discomfort notwithstanding, Jean took the position willingly and, truth be told, had made similar "visitation attempts" to Xavier's, from a place of wanting to understand this girl. Both her pain, and how she could manage the degree she inflicted on others. That scene in the forest was the very embodiment of blind rage, and Jean wondered how Ryder's mind was processing that; if it even realized. But she had been treading even more carefully than Xavier.<br><br>Xavier was cognizant of Jean "stepping" here, like noticing remnants of footprints on the sidewalk. He had to smile at this. Though, he didn't perceive she had gotten as far as he now had. <br><br>This apparent fact pleased him all the more.</div></div><br><div class="hider-panel"><div class="hider-heading"><button type="button" class="btn btn-default btn-xs hider-button" data-name="Writing Sample 3: from Our Mind's Shadowed Hallways">Writing Sample 3: from Our Mind's Shadowed Hallways [+]</button></div><div class="hider-body" style="display: none">Cool. Reserved.<br><br>Scott Summers a.k.a. Cyclops, leader of the X-Men, was often misunderstood as not caring when in fact he cared deeply. <br>So serious all the time because nothing was a throw-away to him; everything mattered. <br><br>Chief among it all, Jean Grey.<br><span class="bb-i">The center of his world</span>.<br><br>She had seen something past his dour exterior, had been open enough to receive him that he could open up to her; show a side to her few, maybe only she, knew.<br><br><span class="bb-i"><span class="bb-b">Had</span></span>.<br><span class="bb-i"><span class="bb-b">Knew</span></span>.<br><br>Everything was changed now. All of their history ceasing to exist in Jean's mind,<br><span class="bb-i">from a series of seemingly insignificant actions which turned into a majorly significant circumstance.</span><br><br>Sometimes Scott felt his entire life was defined this way.<br><br><span class="bb-i">Four people climb into a cockpit. Strap in. Take off. . .</span><br>The next thing he knew he was living as a brain damaged, unwanted orphan.<br><br><span class="bb-i">Three kids get into a fight. One never gets up. One can never go back. . .</span><br>Next thing he knew he was a mutant, and <span class="bb-i">that </span>defined everything about his life going forward.<br><br><span class="bb-i">Was that why. . ?<br><br>Two X-Men undertake a mission. Patrol a sector. Cross an invisible line. . .</span><br>Next thing, he was waking up in the Med Bay, his head feeling. . .<span class="bb-i">strange</span>.<br><br>And Jean woke up feeling he was a stranger.<br><br>She hadn't recognized the X Mansion, yet somehow had vague memories of Charles Xavier, and fractionally remembered the others. Ororo Munroe, Hank McCoy, Logan, etc. somehow she knew them, yet not Storm, The Beast, Wolverine -the X-Men as a whole, her place as one. <br><br>Was that why she remembered nothing of Scott Summers? He didn't know who he was if not Cyclops, leader of the X-Men. <span class="bb-i">But with Jean. . .</span><br>Was this proof he wasn't, in fact, anything else?<br><br>Taken with everything, that couldn't make sense.<br><br>Jean had no memory that she was even a mutant, but it wasn't as simple as saying she lost all memories pertaining to that, if she still recalled everyone else in some way. . <br>. .<span class="bb-i">none</span> of them she would've met had she not been a mutant. Scott needed things to make sense, and so little of this did.<br><br>What had even happened? The other X-Men had been patrolling other sectors. No one saw.<br><br>They had to have been hit by something. . .<br><br>A subsequent probe of the area with Cerebro bore no residual signature of another mutant, no device had been located and with the aforementioned absence of signature, no one could've come to dispose of one.<br><br>. . .Xavier worked out they had in fact <span class="bb-i">encountered</span> something, something that existed on a psychic plain- explaining why Jean was affected so drastically and Cyclops, comparatively nil. <br><br>So what was it? What was this? Coincidental? <span class="bb-i">Planned?</span> Scott's money was on the latter, but then who was behind it? <br>Was this their intended result? <span class="bb-i">Or was there more to the plan he needed to watch out for. . ?</span><br><br>He sighed as he finished crossing the hallways. It was already taking a toll, what he had to deal with in his head. . <br>. .<span class="bb-i">that strange sensation growing stronger. </span><br><br>Which is why Scott now stood outside the presently closed door to Xavier's office.<br>And the voices he heard inside is why he now stood <span class="bb-i">paused</span> outside that door.<br><br>Underway inside, rather, sounding like it had just concluded, was another of Xavier's psychic therapy sessions with Jean. <br>So far there'd been no breaththroughs. . .it didn't sound like one was made this time, either.<br><br>. . .Scott couldn't help eavesdropping.<br><br>He was finding it difficult figuring out how to be around her now. Where to start <span class="bb-i">over</span>.<br>Scott didn't want to get in Jean's way of remembering "herself". Desperate though he was for her to remember "them", he didn't want her to feel pressured to prioritize that. . <br>. .Events had a sequence. It wasn't for him to jump the line.<br><br>That's what he partially convinced himself of, anyway.<br><span class="bb-i">But there was also the matter of. . . . .</span></div></div><br><hr class="bb-hr"><br><br><div class="bb-center"><span class="bb-b"><span class="bb-i">X-Men Envisionings: one passionate fan's riff on the FOX</span> X-Men <span class="bb-i">franchise.<br>Call it a fanfiction, call it what you will, but <span class="bb-u">don't miss out</span>!!</span></span></div><br><br><div class="bb-center"><sub><div class="bb-h2"><font color="#daa06d"><span class="bb-b">Part 2</span></font><font color="#0096ff"> <span class="bb-i">of 2nd Edition</span></font><font color="#daa06d"><span class="bb-b"> Now Released!</span></font><br> <font color="#0096ff"><span class="bb-b">Part 3</span></font><font color="#daa06d"> <span class="bb-i">of 2nd Edition</span></font><font color="#0096ff"><span class="bb-b"> Now Released!</span></font></div></sub><br><span class="bb-b"><a href="https://telkjplang.wixsite.com/xmenenvisionings/post/envisionings-1-2nd-edition-part-3" title="https://telkjplang.wixsite.com/xmenenvisionings/post/envisionings-1-2nd-edition-part-3" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">telkjplang.wixsite.com/xmenenvisionin…</a></span><br><sub><div class="bb-h3"><font color="#daa06d"><span class="bb-i"> Back and</span></font><font color="#daa06d"> <span class="bb-i">better than ever!</span></font><br><font color="#0096ff"><span class="bb-i">Back and</span></font><font color="#0096ff"> <span class="bb-i">better than ever!</span></font></div></sub></div><br><br><div class="bb-center"><sub><div class="bb-h3"><font color="#e5e4e2"><span class="bb-b"><span class="bb-i">Consider becoming an X-Envisioner yourself:</span></span></font><br> <font color="#7393b3"><span class="bb-b"><span class="bb-i">Consider becoming an X-Envisioner yourself:</span></span></font></div></sub><br><a href="https://telkjplang.wixsite.com/xmenenvisionings/post/seeking-collaborators" title="https://telkjplang.wixsite.com/xmenenvisionings/post/seeking-collaborators" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">telkjplang.wixsite.com/xmenenvisionin…</a></div><br><br><hr class="bb-hr"><br><div class="bb-center"><span class="bb-b"><sub><div class="bb-h3"><font color="blue">The <span class="bb-i">X-Men</span> continues to be this e<span class="bb-b">x</span>cellent odyssey</font><br><font color="yellow"> The <span class="bb-i">X-Men</span> continues to be this e<span class="bb-b">x</span>cellent odyssey</font></div></sub><br><sub><div class="bb-h3"><font color="blue"> <span class="bb-i">Where ever it takes me.</span></font><br><font color="yellow"><span class="bb-i">Where ever it takes me.</span></font></div></sub></span></div><br><br><div class="bb-center"><span class="bb-i"><span class="bb-b">X-Men Envisionings</span>, a sector of </span><br><span class="bb-i"><sub><div class="bb-h2"><span class="bb-b"><font color="silver">TechtraColour</font></span><br> <font color="hotpink">Te</font><font color="chartreuse">cht</font><font color="cyan">raC</font><font color="purple">olo</font><font color="hotpink">ur</font></div></sub></span><br><a href="https://trytrip3.wixsite.com/techtracolour" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">trytrip3.wixsite.com/techtracolour</a> <br><br>=================</div><br><br></div>
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