xp_logs | Vitiation

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After the incident in the kitchen, Yvette goes to find Marius's friend.

Intent on telling Jennie about the scene in the kitchen, Yvette headed back to the suite. Fortunately, the older girl was there, parked on the couch watching television. "Jennie, I am needing to speak with you!" she burst out in a rush, which was unusual for the chronically shy girl. "I am being worried, about your friend."

Jennie's eyebrow went up. "Which one? I...oh--" she didn't know what made her click to Marius, but she sat up suddenly. "What happened? Did he upset you?"

"He is being... upset." If she could have wrung her hands, Yvette would have. As it was, she clasped them together, her voice obviously distressed. The spikes of her hair and hands seemed more pronounced than they had been, her skin a darker shade of red. "I was saying hello, and he was being very strange. He is seeming nervous and unwell and..." She paused. "Hungry?"

"That's...he shouldn't be. He just fed a couple of days ago." Something really wasn't right. She'd seen Terry on the schedule for earlier in the week when she was downstairs for a checkup. Jennie crouched down and was careful to put her hands on Yvette's covered shoulders. "Pen--Yvette, did Marius do anything to you?"

Yvette shook her head. "No. He is almost being afraid of me - when I am going near him, he is... teleport? That is the word, yes? He is vanishing, like magic." She looked Jennie in the yes. "And he is almost calling me 'Penny', like you are doing. This is how I am knowing he is your friend, the one who is getting me away from the Bad Place, yes? If this is so... I am wanting to be sure he is all right."

What Jennie wanted to say that the girl had just spooked him. That he had just run off because he didn't want to be in the same room as the Yvette, like she had. But the mention of the hunger set off an alarm. "I'm....I'm not sure." Jennie sat back and ran her hand through her hair. She wasn't sure why she was reacting this way, if Marius was having problems, that was his business.

But still.

Jennie made to stand up, when she noticed the sleeves of the hoodie she was wearing, having put it on this morning without even a thought. The dark red hoodie. Little red riding hood. "Yvette," Jennie said, sounding slightly strangled, "This...you didn't see him in the kitchen, did you?"

Yvette nodded, puzzled. How would Jennie know that? "He is dropping the cutleries on the floor and when I am being to help him, he is disappearing. He was seeming very strange. Like... he is not being all there?" She made a helpless gesture, frustrated by her lack of English. "He is seeming like he is needing the doctor and saying he isn't feeling well."

"Like, distracted? Disconnected?" On the other's girl's nod, Jennie began to pace. "That is so strange. He doesn't do that for at least another several days, if he hasn't eaten." Jennie stopped. The sensible part of her was screaming let him deal with it! It's not your problem anymore! But she kept going back to Marie Ange's vision, which was already starting to come true.

The wolf needs to be saved or he'll be eaten.

"I must be insane, to be considering this. All right, here's what I'm going to do," she crouched down by Yvette again. "I'm going to look for him, and check if he's okay. If he's got hunger pangs, I'll call the staff immediately. He might listen to me if he's being stupid."

Yvette nodded. "You are being his good friend, to be helping him." She couldn't explain why she was so concerned for someone she'd never even spoken to, only... he'd been the one to get her away from whatever she'd been hiding from. And he seemed so sad, so alone. "Will I be telling someone? A teacher, or Miss Doctor Amelia?"

"Let's hold off on that for a bit," Jennie said, getting up and disappearing into her room, re-emerging with another jacket and a scarf. "I don't want to raise a false alarm, but just in case. If I don't come back by dinner, let somebody know, okay?" She held up her cellphone, "This has a button where I can call for help if I need it. Can you hang out here and wait until dinner?" No reason to cause anymore uneasiness between Marius and Yvette.

Hang out... that meant stay. "Yes, I can be hanging out," Yvette said earnestly, nodded so emphatically the spikes of her hair rattled slightly. She felt better, now there was a plan. "Jennie will be looking after him, yes?" Then she realized something. "Please, what is your friend's name? I am not knowing."

"It seems like I'm always looking after his dumb butt," Jennie muttered. She slipped on the jacket and wound the scarf around her neck. "I'm going to ask if anybody else has seen him first." She reached the door, and then turned around to look at Yvette before she left. "And, his name is Marius. My friend's name is Marius."

With a little bit of luck, Jennie finds Marius. And he is much worse off than either of them know.

This was ridiculous. Almost an hour's worth of searching and she was getting nowhere. It was cold, she was wet, and Marius was still gone. Jennie checked her watch, squinting and then turning the flashlight she'd thought to bring on it. She'd missed dinner by now, and it would definitely be almost sunset. Not that she could tell with all the heavy clouds. At least it was only a light drizzle.

She dropped her arms to her sides and sighed, loudly. She'd gone on the jogger's path into the woods, and still no sign of him. It was only Marie-Ange's vision that sent her into the woods into the first place. No one she questioned had seen him. His room was empty, and there was no way in hell he would be in the medlab past his work duty. So the woods it was. Why he would go there on a cold, miserable day was beyond her. But then again, Marius was never one for thinking things through.

Jennie crossed her arms and tapped her foot, there had to be a better way. She was only going to find him through dumb luck at this rate. Her head snapped up. Luck. That was it.

"Powers, make yourselves useful for a change," she muttered, and closed her eyes. "Luck," she whispered, willing it, "I need luck here." She opened her eyes, spun around and took off in the opposite direction off the path. Hopefully, this was the way to do it. She clicked on her flashlight as she made her way into the underbrush, it was slightly darker out there than in the dim-half light on the path.

Unbeknownst to her, her cellphone lay on the path, having slipped out of a hole in her jacket pocket.

Roughness against his forehead. Water soaking into the knees of sweats. And cold. Cold all the way to the core of him, for a time now he couldn't even guess at. Time did not exist.

Terry's mutation was still in his system; whatever was approaching him, he heard it coming early. Twigs snapping under sneakers, branches whipping back across stiff cloth. It seemed to take an eternity in reaching him. Closer, closer. Marius' breathing quickened with each rustle of underbrush, but he didn't move. He remained on his knees before the tree with his hands pressed against the trunk, his entire body locked around the security of needle-thin teeth buried in the crumbling bark.

There was no real purpose or direction here, Jennie stumbled almost blindly through the thick detritus of the woods. Many of the leaves had fallen, making passage even more difficult. The sun was probably well on it's way to setting, as the light receded to an almost dim blue. She was going on only the thinnest shred of instinct, a faint trace of white and a tug of "thattaway," until suddenly, it stopped.

Jennie paused, breath steaming in the cold. This should be it, her powers told her. She turned, slowly looking around. She was deep in the woods now, and darkness was steadily encroaching, and suddenly she was not sure if she should have trusted her powers or not.

"Marius!" she called. "Marius, are you here? Please be out here..." she muttered. "Everyone's worried, you gotta come back." She swept the flashlight around her, beam shaking a little as she shivered in the damp cold.

She almost didn't notice the figure huddled against the tree-trunk, clad only in sweats with his forehead pressed to the bark, until he looked up and his orange pupils reflected green in the beam of her flashlight. Jennie jumped and nearly dropped it.

. . . Jen?

Her aura shone against the grey trees. Marius' besieged mind faltered. One minute he'd been alone, huddled in the rotting leaves and gnawing chill of wherever his blind teleport had taken him, and suddenly Jennie was here. Jennie, who wasn't speaking to him, and had no reason to be out in the middle of the woods. Jennie, to whom he had done the unforgivable. It was like a dream, the impossible and inexplicable suddenly made reality.

But every sense told him she was here. His predator's awareness screamed with it. Close. So close he could almost taste her. Still sunken into the bark, the mouths on his palms began to churn.

Marius slowly lifted light-slitted pupils against the glare of the flashlight and rasped, "You want not to be here right now."

Jennie's first instinct was to go to him, but common sense and a disturbing amount of red light held her back. The girl clicked off the flashlight. She wouldn't go for the phone just yet, though. He was talking, which meant he wasn't hunger-crazed at the moment. Yvette had said he'd seemed unwell, and Jennie really wanted to get him home and make sure he was safe. She was slightly surprised by how much she was scared for him.

"Yeah, it's kind of cold out here," she called back. "Come on, let's go back to the mansion. I-I think I can find my way back. I'll walk you. Or I can call somebody."

"Go away." Soft bark disintegrated under his clutching fingers as his hands were wracked with uncontrollable spasms. Any sort of meaningful explanation was far beyond his capacity to give. Marius jerked his gaze away in the desperate hope that breaking visual contact would lessen the urges, but it made no difference. He could still feel the brush of her presence there, each small, hesitant movement tensing his muscles tighter and tighter until he just wanted to lunge and be done with it . . .

He remembered closing his hand around Jennie's arm on the rooftop in Paris, teeth held quiescent against her skin.

No. Not that. Not the one thing I never did to her. I never, I never--

Marius squeezed his eyes shut and thrust forehead down against the bark of the tree so violently skin tore, hands clenching. He felt one of his fingernails tear away from the cuticle. "Bloody go!" he screamed.

The dark-haired girl flinched and stepped back. Her hand went into her pocket for her cellphone. Time to call the docs, he was in a bad way. Her fingers groped at air. She checked the other pocket. Nothing. Heart pounding, she shoved her hand back in her original pocket, nothing. Nothing but a big....hole. She looked down and saw her fingers sticking out of the corner of her pocket.

"Shit."

She backed away slowly, breath coming out in a shudder. The red in her vision took on a sharper, darker edge. Oh, this was dumb. Her shoe hit a patch of rotting, wet wood and she slipped, almost falling.

The sudden movement triggered a response Marius couldn't control. His hands wrenched themselves from the trunk, the pain of teeth broken and left behind barely registering. By the time Jennie could recover her footing he was already on her. He managed to foul the wild grab at the last instant to force himself stumbling past her, the harsh drag of his breath rasping with the effort. Dreadlocks spun as he whirled on her.

"Go!" he begged even as his hands began to stretch out again.

Her eyes went from his confused and desperate expression to the hands that were reaching for her, and the broken, jagged mouths that twitched uncontrollably at her presence. Jennie didn't need any further warning, she ran.

Crashing, stumbling, almost tripping and falling again, Jennie ran faster than she ever thought possible. Faster than she had while being dragged from her own powers in Monaco.

"So, say you go all 'grr' on me? Hypothetically speaking of course. Anything I should know? Soft, vulnerable areas I should kick?"

She could feel Marius behind her, crashing through the underbrush. His harsh breathing made louder by his respirator. She barely dodged a tree branch, getting scraped in the process. It was getting harder to see, the light had all but faded, but there was no time to stop and switch on the flashlight she still had clutched tightly in her hand.

"Can't say I'm enamoured of abuse of my fleshy-bits, but it's rather a better alternative than a direct use of powers. I should definitely advise against that, lest one or both of us end up cowering in a garage. Cheers, by the way. I am touched that you'd come to me for my opinion on effecting my swift and efficient take-down. A bloke does like to have a say in decisions of this calibre."

Marius's hand darted out and grabbed hold of her jacket, yanking her back fiercely. Jennie stumbled and almost fell, and the boy lost his grip on her. She scrabbled to her feet quickly as his hand snaked out to grab her wrist. She met his eyes, pupils dilated against orange irises. Wild, frightened, and hungry. Jennie mouthed "I'm sorry," and hit him in the face with the flashlight as hard as she could.

"Well, it's better than the alternative. You? With my powers? Not so much. Ever have everything that could possibly go wrong within a 10-foot radius happen all at once?"

Panic now. Running, no sense of direction. Just away from the presence behind her. Her best friend, having lost all control of himself. And the terror that he would get a hold of her, feed on her, and suddenly gain the power to hurt her or himself way more than he thought possible.

"Yes, quite. I suggest the application of blunt objects, indirect or unpowered attacks only. Several of my unintended victims have already utilized this strategy to some success. The ceiling of Medlab, for instance, seemed to do nicely."

He was much faster. Hands grabbed at her jacket again, this time with a much better grip. Jennie dropped, shrugging out of it, climbing quickly to her feet, running again. Faster. Her breath ached in her chest, and her hands and feet were almost numb with cold. She was pushing to exhaustion. There had to be another way.

She slowed as she staggered into a clearing, every step a crash of undergrowth. Marius wrenched himself to a stop before crossing the treeline, fighting to break the chase, but the impulse of pursuit could only be altered, not checked. As he began to circle her his mind still struggled for some kind of understanding: he felt none of that stretched thinness that should have precipitated an attack, it had been less than four days since his last feeding, how could he still be conscious but unable to stop, why was this happening, why, why, why--

Sounds of cascading leaves punctuated by the rasping edge of the respirator as it struggled to adjust to Marius' laboured breathing surrounded Jennie in the quiet dark, thrshh, thrshh, thrssh -- and then silence.

This had to stop, she had to stop him somehow. They couldn't go on forever, lost in the woods. He was going to catch her, unless she found some way to knock him out. Jennie hugged herself, shivering violently in the cold rain and listening to the rasp of Marius's respirator as he moved in a slow, steady circle around her.

She couldn't see him, just the sounds coming from the underbrush, it was now too dark to really see. Jennie squinted, looking at the lines of probability. What she saw made her heart beat faster, and her hands began to glow red. But no, that's too close, unless...

Marius exploded out at her from the tree line, and there was no more time to debate. Faster than either of them could blink, Jennie flung out two bright red disks, missing Marius by inches and disappearing into the trees. Just as quickly, Jennie reached within and called the other side of her power, forcing it out around herself like a small nimbus of white.

Please work please work please god let this work, I'm so sorry Marius...

There was a deafening crack, and a large old growth tree suddenly plummeted, years of a parasitic infection having finally killed it and bringing it crashing down on top of both Marius and Jennie.

An alarm is sounded, and Cain responds. But he needs Kyle to help him track.

The rain was ruining a perfectly good climb, and he'd been so close to getting a good look at one very damn cool eagle nest before the slight drizzle turned into a nasty cold heavy rain. He was already wet before he got down out of the tree, and gave up on trying to stay dry, only being thankful he hadn't had a book or anything that would've been ruined by being wet.

Skidding a little in the rain-slicked grass, Kyle ran for the mansion before he got any more soaked. As he turned a corner, he caught the light-blocking bulk of Cain coming out the back door, in just as much of a hurry as Kyle was himself, and slid to a stop, digging the claws of one foot into the ground to keep from losing his balance and sliding into the big man. Not that, Kyle thought, it would hurt Mr. Marko, but it'd be embarrassing as all hell.

Cain still held a hand to his ear, grimacing. Sure, telepathic contact from someone's annoying stepbrother hadn't made anyone's brain leak out YET, but he wasn't taking any chances. A mental image of Jennie attacked by that Marius kid was all Cain needed to get moving. Of course, the dark and the rain left him wondering just HOW he was supposed to find them.

However, a six-foot-three teenage feral rounding the corner seemed to solve at least one problem. "Gibney!" Cain hollered, reaching out to grab the boy by the shoulder. "You any good at following people with that super-nose of yours?"

As Cain grabbed him, Kyle's feet left the ground for a moment, sending him just off balance enough to make a startled almost-howl. He scrambled to get his feet back on the ground, and looked up. "As long as they're not totally, you know, trying to hide, or it's not in something extra-stinky, yeah." He stuck a finger in one ear to try to dispel the ringing. Mr. Marko was -loud-. "What's up? We lose somebody?"

"Yeah," Cain said, spinning Kyle around and giving him a small push to the backyard. "Your buddy Marius looks to have gone a bit crazy, and Jennie Whatsername, you know, lucky girl? Probably in some danger. So you're drafted to play bloodhound. Chuck says they're out in the woodline somewhere. Let's get a move on before this rain makes it any harder, huh?"

"Oh Jesus fuck..." Kyle swore, shaking his head. "Man, one more time of him running off stupid and I'm throwing him in the lake, I don't care how the fuck cold it is." As an afterthought, he added "Sorry for the swearing.", and sprinted to catch up with Cain's extra-long stride.

Everything comes to a head.

The trees strobing red and then white, the world around him twisting too fast to react to, and then -- a sickening crack. Wood and leaves and darkness driving him down under their weight, thrashing and struggling to no effect. Pinned. Escape . . .

A flicker of instinct took him clear of the tree, but it didn't save him from the damage already done. Through the fog he felt every injury: the spot the branches had struck his back, the ankle that had been twisted as he went down, the spike of pain from one of the wrists he'd instinctively flung out to catch himself. Marius lay curled in pain and dispersing sulfur, one cheek pressed into the slime of the leaves and heart drumming in his ears.

Crouched beneath the branches of the tree, Jennie could not stop shaking. Improbably, except for a few scratches she was unharmed between two large tree branches. I totally Buster Keantoned that. A slightly hysterical giggle escaped and she clapped her hands quickly over her mouth. Up and out, she had to get out. But where was...? She clambered out of the wreckage of the tree, still trembling. He was still underneath the tree? No, there he was, off to the side and... lying very still.

"Marius!" For one sickening moment, Jennie thought she had killed him. Cautiously, she slunk closer to him, the ringing in her ears and the staccato of her own heartbeat making it impossible to hear his respirator.

Too close. Too late. Between the instant it took Jennie to raise and lower a foot Marius was surging towards her with a speed not to be believed. Dark hands bore her down, down onto her back in the mud and leaves. Unable to pierce her sweater, broken teeth snarled on the red cotton; one hand forced itself beneath the fabric of the hood to find purchase in the flesh of her trapezius, the other caught and locked on a flailing wrist. Even as the mouths began to convulse he tried to choke a question, the words unintelligible, all sense lost in the hiss and pull of the respirator.

Why couldn't you go?

Her cry was cut off when he knocked all the breath out of her. There were sharp tears of pain as his hands found purchase on the side of her neck and wrist. Jennie's stomach twisted painfully as she felt the mouths churn before the numbness set in. No, please, no... Thrashing, she tried to slip out of his grip, but that only made him tighten it.

Jennie desperately looked around for a line that would help her, but found nothing. Her already weakened body began to feel the effects of the sudden loss of marrow, and darkness began encroaching on the edges of her vision. She struggled to keep her eyes open, to keep from passing out, but she was fast losing that battle. Head turning, she fixed her half-lidded gaze dully back on Marius. A thought drifted up from somewhere far away.

He looks so...sad.

Cain loped after Kyle, the both of them homing in on the loud crash. The rain had started coming down in earnest, and the rumble of thunder in the distance gave a good indication that the first serious autumn storm was headed in.

As if on cue, the sky lit up like a flashbulb with a nearby strike of lightning. About a football field's length away, Cain and Kyle could both see the silhouette of a dreadlocked figure hunched predatorily above a girl who was obviously trying to struggle.

"Shit..." Cain breathed, turning to Kyle, who crouched panting next to him. An idea crossed Cain's mind and he reached down for the back of Kyle's shirt. "You ever play football?" he asked.

Kyle yelped an affirmative answer as he was hoisted off the ground and over Cain's shoulder. They'd made a ton of noise, stomping around in the woods, but it didn't seem like Marius noticed.

"Lemee guess..." he grunted. "I get to be the football, right?" More like a javilin, or arrow, he thought, as far away as Marius was. "Man, I hope your aim's good." he said, tucking his arms into his chest. "Or that you played like, baseball in college or something." This, he thought, no matter what, was gonna -hurt-.

"Baseball's for pussies," Cain said as he cocked his arm back, letting Kyle crouch and tense for a leap. "Try lacrosse sometime."

Two large steps for momentum, and Cain flung his arm forward, sending Kyle sailing through the air like a fastball directly for Marius' head.

A noise somewhere between a yelp and a snarl came out of Kyle as he flew through the air, escalating to a howl as he hit Marius in the side with his shoulder, one arm swinging out to grab the other young man around the neck.

Above the trees, Lorna had been searching for some sign of the missing students, a bracelet, a watch. She would have unkind words later for the Professor for broadcasting the call for help but once she'd gotten over the familiar nausea, she'd kicked into the air and sped out to the woods. Jennie and Marius both missing and who knew what going wrong with Marius.

The cellphone had let her know she was on the right track at least. The brilliant flashes of red and white light were a better indication. Lorna dove through the trees, weaving through branches and leaves that dislodged at the slightest brush.

She caught herself on a low branch just as a large dark shape went hurtling through the air and tackled the hunched figure on the forest floor. She nearly stopped it before she realized what was happening. Instead she dropped from the tree and landed next to Jennie, grabbing her--still so thin, so horribly thin--and dragging her from the sudden battlefield.

Brought back to consciousness by sudden searing pain, Jennie screamed as Marius was ripped off of her. She rolled protectively onto her side before hands grabbed at her again, dragging her away. Jennie struggled before she realized that the hands on her were not rough and grey. There was another bolt of lightning, and Jennie saw a flash of green.

Ms. Dane? She clutched at the older woman, before turning towards where there were sounds of a struggle. Then...?

"It's all right, Jennie," Lorna said as the girl struggled, not even sure if Jennie was hearing her, "Everything's okay. I've got you, you're all right." Lorna pulled her closer, Jennie's back against her. She wrapped her arms around the girl tightly and watched the fight. "We're going to take care of this." Not that she knew who 'we' was. Who was that fighting Marius anyway?

The tackle was met with a snarl from Kyle's target, and he would have been surprised, had he not been focused on wrapping his arms and legs around Marius's to try to pin him down. He could hear something, dragging, scraping crashing noises, just over the wheeze-rasp of Marius' respirator and the thunder and rain, and caught the smell of blood in the air, over the acid stink of Marius.

"Stay down, you crazy shit for brains!" Kyle spat, in between grabbing at a swinging fist, and taking a elbow to the ribs, and kicking Marius' feet out from under him. "Sharp fucking elbow! Jesus!" He growled, and lunged again, trying to get just one good grip on anything, an arm, a leg, anything to keep Marius from flailing around wildly.

There was no way to get the edge over Kyle; the boy was all flashing limbs, his clothing and speed making it impossible for Marius' grasping hands to get any kind of hold. Already hurt and totally outmatched in both size and skill, Marius' instincts finally threw him into a blind teleport away from his opponent.

And, unluckily, right in front of the one person on the scene who did not have a mutagenic signature to distinguish him from the darkness.

Cain took a step back as Marius materialized right in front of him in a foul-smelling cloud of burning sulfur. Instinctively, he knew that if he didn't take the kid down right here, he'd just blink away again and hurt someone else. Probably far enough away that they couldn't catch him.

One fist cocked back, and suddenly Cain flashed back to the Utah desert, and a sixteen-year old girl whose powers were out of her control. He'd stopped her then, all right. Hard enough to knock her right into a coma. Never again, he'd said. These were kids.

Instead, he drew both arms back, then swung forward, slamming his hands together at full strength right above Marius' head, fists colliding with the power of a grenade going off. The shockwave alone blew the grass flat around them.

The strike of flesh on flesh filled the clearing like a thunderclap, and in the instant between the explosive pressure in his ears and the blessed descent of unconsciousness Marius had just enough time to form the thought, in substance if not words:

Thank you--

Marius collapsed.

The force from Cain's fists threw both Lorna and Jennie back. Jennie looked up in time to see the smaller silhouette in front of Cain collapse bonelessly onto the ground.

"Marius!"

Lorna let go of Jennie and grabbed for her phone, hitting the speeddial for the infirmary. "Amelia, it's Lorna. We found Marius and Jennie. They're both injured, I don't think seriously. We're bringing them in now." She turned her attention back to Jennie. "Cain will take care of Marius, he's okay. Let's get you inside."

Kyle pulled himself to his feet, and shook the dirt and leaves from his face and hair. "Can you ask Dr. Voight if I can come down too?" He looked over at Marius, slumped in a heap. "He's gonna need donations. Bad." Marius looked -awful-. All bones and ashy grey skin, like a deflated elephant.

"He, there's something wrong with him. He couldn't stop himself, just kept telling me to run. And I...I hit him with the tree." Jennie pressed a hand to her neck, it felt slick, and not just from the rain. The patch on her wrist was starting to throb. She let Lorna help her to her feet. "Please be careful."

Cain wandered up, Marius' limp body tossed over one shoulder. "You kids okay here? We ought to get these two in to Doc Voght. And thank God that Moira's in town, Fancy Lad here don't seem much like himself."

As he turned to go, Cain paused and reached out to clap Kyle lightly on the shoulder. "You did good, kid," he said quietly. "Real hero stuff there."

"Hold tight, Jennie. The last thing we need is to trip over a tree root going back." Lorna nudged her into motion, wanting to get the girl back at the mansion before shock set in. She didn't really want to have to carry the girl, though she was nearly certain she could if it came to that. "Kyle, can you be our eyes? My night vision is crap."

"All of your night visions are crap." Kyle said. "And, uh, thanks, Mr. Marko." He was glad it was dark, and all of them couldn't see. He was pretty sure he might be red-faced embarrassed, and that was just not cool.

"Log on the left. Stay right." He said, crouching down to push the log away. "Man, we need to like, name that throw somebody at somebody else thing. That was pretty useful." he added.