Discovery within the Changing Tide

[x-psylocke.livejournal.com]

This log takes place last week the day of the very bad Amanda/Manny log here

This is the log that sets it off, folks. Enjoy!



Psionics class.

Today's class is all about the basics of shielding, which means that inside fifteen minutes Manuel had developed a grinding headache and the undying enmity of his classmates. Empathy doesn't react to traditional psionic frequencies, so it sails right through normal psi-shields. But Manuel's own shields can best be described as non-existent, and his progress at bending his mind around the gyrations necessary to block any sort of telepathic talent, let alone of Betsy's caliber, are the cause of the aforementioned grinding headache. Only the intense mental static his mind generates keeps him from being a total open book.

She made her way up the aisles of her class, stopping every few moments, as she helped each student find their mental foothold within their memories. Bury yourself within the memory, create your mental boundaries, and fortify yourself, in any way, against attack. "What you're learning today are the essentials. They are the building blocks to which will keep your minds safe from prying eyes." She accentuates the point, by tapping on her forehead.

"That's good. Let's see how long you can keep your focus?" She stopped next to Manny's seat, glancing down at him, then continued on her rotation. She took a moment to glance in his direction, before returning her attention to the class. While she return to her lecture, she burrowed her way into Manuel’s psyche, searching for conscious mind. There was a proposition to be made and very little time to act.

Manuel's problem with this approach is that his memories are, given his power, more emotional than rational. Not so good for defeating telepathy. But he can see the reddish-yellow glow of her curiosity from inside of her, pick it up as easily as he sees the blonde in the seat in front of him. He can also feel the psi-probe hammering its way through the static, but his inexpert fumblings are not enough to block it, dissuade it, or even slow it down much. The blonde, a delta-level telepath, gets empathically twisted into finding something fascinating in the whorls and swirls of the wood of her desk, thus withering her psionic probe to nothing.

Riding the waves of memories and breaking through Manuel's threshold are of little concern. His ravaged mind is barely able to keep his thoughts to himself, let alone protect him from others. Searching for him within the psi-plane though was another matter. Honing in on his presence and right when she almost pulled back, she felt him. There. Immersing herself within his memories, she found herself in the strangest of places, a tortured memory for the Spaniard.

The memory is highly unpleasant. We see a younger, more ragged, far more wasted Manuel. He's strapped to a table face-down, with four beefy orderlies surrounding him. One's got a pillbox of thorazine suppositories in his hand, laughing. The others are laughing as well, sadism and cruelty scribbling over their forms in brown, black, and red spiky forms. It's not a happy memory, and he hasn't noticed the entrance of Betsy in his mindscape.

She stared, curiously at the scene unfolding before her. She remembered the message Wisdom and Frost had left on the staff boards. This de la Rocha had fallen under the control of a Shaw. A most degrading position to have befallen him, as the shame of it was far worse than whatever he experience in this place. She watched as the orderlies moved toward him, Elisabeth moving with them, watching the scene unfold. Such information could prove useful in the future.

To the rest of the class, Elisabeth Braddock continued prompting them with her instructions, all the while wearing a very satisfied smile.

The orderlies do what they had done time and time again - insert a device into Manuel's rear to pry open and hold open his anus, then the one with the pillbox removed a suppository, showed it to the others, and then crammed it into the device. The orderlies laughed more, poking the device and laughing at Manuel's cries of pain. Worst of all was the feeling of sexual excitement that permeated the scene, which Manuel as an uncontrolled empath was forced to mirror before the drug finally took hold and put his talent to sleep.

"Enough!" she bellowed. Her voice echoing off the bare walls. The scene stopped, the orderlies frozen in their manical poses, still standing over the young boy, lustful. She waved her hand and the men moved backwards, as if time was being set back. The cuffs had been removed and Betsy moved toward Manny, placing her hand on his shivering form. "Shhhh. It's alright, you're safe now."

Manuel-then looks at Betsy and then bursts into tears in shame. He curls into a ball, trying to protect his tender rear end and cover himself. Neither objective is well-met by his efforts. Clearly, he's lost himself in the memory of who-he-was. His psionic self-image is thin and washed-out, taking on the colors and rough shapes of the sadistic orderlies.

Pulling a blanket from behind her, she covers the frail boy. "You are not here, Manuel. This place is no longer with you, your body no longer weak, and your spirit much stronger. Stand up. Be not of this place."

Manuel, under Betsy's psionic suggestion, regains the muscle mass and flexibility he's worked so hard to put back on as he stands up. Clothing, a very expensive suit, appears over his no-more-well-defined-than-before psionic self-image construct. "Why have you brought me here?" he exclaims angrily. "We can both do a lot of damage to the other here."

She pulled back from him, giving him the appropriate space to recover. "I have not brought you anywhere, Manuel. You brought yourself here, I only wished to speak with you." She motioned to their surroundings. "If you prefer the company of your captors over mine, I can leave."

Manuel snarled, and closed his eyes to concentrate for a second. When he opened his eyes, the torture scene had changed to a study, very warmly heated and filled with cigar smoke, books, and crystal decanters of various alcohols. "Drink?" he asked, playing the perfect host, as two black leather overstuffed chairs appeared. "I am listening..."

"No, thank you. I am here to propose a barter, a trade of sorts for your services. " She grinned at his lavish surroundings, impressed. “I have a problem that requires your assistance."

Manuel shrugs and pours himself one. Then he's sitting in a chair, lounging, with a drink in one hand and a fine Cuban cigar in the other. "What _sort_ of a problem?" he asks curiously.

A devious smile broke free from a darker place. No longer hidden under the guise of the proper Englishwoman. "Oddly enough, I am dealing with control issues, myself."

Manuel cracks a wide smile at that. "Really? That's too bad." He then takes a drink of his drink, and a puff of his smoke. "Those sorts of problems can be very infuriating. I take it yours is of an emotional nature? Or is it something more ... earthy?" he smirks toothily.

"Indeed. Though, if you're assuming that I'm suffering from hormonal issues, you're mistaken." She positioned herself in front of Manuel. "I suggest you take a more polite tone, Mr. de la Rocha."

"Perhaps I'm misremembering something from your psionics lessons, but we're in _my_ mind. Which means that you play by my rules. Unless you'd care to match wills?" He then shrugs, and takes another drink of his beverage. "But threats are boring and gauche. Let us assume that you need my help. What are you proposing to compensate me for my time and efforts?"

"Agreed, even in your broken state, you do have a point." She walked behind his chair, her hand trailing is face and down his shirt. "Your carnal heart is so predictable, Manuel." She stops her ministrations, pulls back and steeples her hands as she speaks. "I will give you whatever you wish, within reason of course."

Manuel tsks. "And you were doing so _well_ right up until the end there." he chides. But her touch feels good, even in this nowhere land inside of his mind, so he permits the impertinence - and goes one step further. His eyes flash red as he decides to share the pleasure in those trailed fingertips with Betsy's mind directly. "Let's assume for the moment that I believe that you'll honor this bargain. What do you want done, and to whom?"

She let out a surprised gasp as his ability bridges the gap between them. "You are a clever boy. I must keep that in mind in the future. But before I let you play, perhaps you should know what you are dealing with.”

Manuel smiles thinly. "Just be careful what you do - it could have unpleasant repercussions. But I will listen to what you have to say - for now. But be quick - you're beginning to bore me."

"Fine." She closes her eyes, and the landscape quickly changes. The shift happens fast enough to bring Manuel unceremoniously to the floor as they make their destination. The scenery is different, they've apparently returned to the school on the faculty floor, no less. Betsy is nowhere to be found and Manuel is left alone in the darken halls. He looks about the hallway, as he hears a dull thud coming from behind a door. The door is only a few feet ahead, but the noise growing louder as he moves towards it.

Manuel blinks, trying to control this new scenario, trying to master his own mind. He may as well light a candle in a hurricane for all the good it does him. Just to be safe, he sends an empathic probe towards Betsy's mind, seeking a deep read of her emotional state. At least that way he might get some warning if she planned on doing something unpleasant to him.

Her mind remained closed to him. She would not give him the satisfaction of it all. Open. He would have to trust her. Though she gave him no reason to. Not one. The pounding on the door continued to grew to deafening levels.

Manuel grimaced, and focused his empathic talent as much as he possibly could. No psi-shield could stop him, and he wasn't about to let Betsy hide from him. Foolishly, secure in his arrogance, he opened the door.

A wave of overwhelming emotions, memories, forced their way through the doorway, washing over Manuel. With his empathic abilities left wide-open, his eyes glowing fire- red, he was virtually swept away in the aftershock. Help me. Over and over again, a voice pleaded with him. When the door slammed shut, Manuel was on the floor, wracked with tremors, his senses overloaded.

A pair of black leather heels came up to his face. "She's been really troublesome. I can't seem to get her to shut up. And it's been giving me a bothersome headache."

Manuel cursed his stupidity in Casillian as he picked himself up from the floor. "I begin to see the nature of your problem." he mused, straightening his mental suit and trying to clear his senses of the overload. "Tell me - if that's Betsy Braddock in there, then who are you?"

The facade of the beautiful purple-tressed telepath shimmered away. In her wake, stood an Asian-woman of equal, if not more beauty. Her jet-black hair long and flowing over her right eye. She wore a purple suit, skin tight and accentuating all her attributes, which were many. In the way of weapons, she carried two sais, both hanging loosely off her belt. She bowed her head, "I am Kwannon."

Manuel grinned as he inspected Kwannon from head to toe. "Very nice. Even without trying I can see why you hide behind Betsy. My price is a future consideration. I'm sure that you can find a suitable way to repay your debt to me. Your kind understands and respects things like honor and becoming indebted. Do we have an agreement, Kwannon?"

Nodding her head in agreement, she muses. "She has proved a worthy adversary, forceful. Though I believe I have raised enough suspicion by my unlady-like actions." She leaned toward him, studying his face. "I believe we can come to some sort of compromise. My people do respect the natural order. And with your help in controlling Elisabeth Braddock, I will be indebted to you, Manuel"

He smiled at that, and extended his hand towards Kwannon for a handshake. "I wouldn't have it any other way, my dear. I accept." he says with a smile and a slightly red-eyed twinkle.

"You will hear from me soon." She looked at his offered hand, not shaking it and decidedly shimmered out of the room. This, in itself, forced Manuel out of the psychic plane, finding himself back within the classroom. The woman masquerading as Betsy Braddock was standing before him. "Try not to sleep on my time, Mr. de la Rocha." She turned from him and addressed the rest of the students. "Well done, class. Let's take a break and try another exercise when you've rested, alright?"

Manuel just winked indecently at her, and then set to concentrating while the rest of the class rested. His eyes screamed a hellish red, but it was his mind that was busy. The empathic probe forced its way into Betsy's mind, ripping the door off of its hinges, and rooting through her terrors, he fears, her dirty emotional laundry - gathering it all into one convenient package.

He fed that little black concentrated package of fear and pain and hate and love and anger and sadness and lust and regret back into Betsy, working hard to make sure that she enjoyed every second of it. I cannot make that permanent, but she should be a long time in recovering,” he mentally sent towards Kwannon. “We'll talk later."

Whatever Manuel had done had sent the forceful Braddock into a protective state, the grinding force on her mind, gone. The internal battle that culminated over the past two months had finally reached a turning point. Kwannon took a deep breath and released it. Much better. If truth be told, she was closer to losing her hold on the British woman than she’d like to admit. Manuel will never be aware of how grateful she’ll truly be for his services.

The mirage that was Betsy Braddock bowed at Manuel before she returned with the lesson, wearing that same deviant smile. “Good. Now, let's see what you're all really made of?”