Fred, Angelo, Haller, Hank: An Accident

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After plans are made to attempt to help Fred with his Powers, the situation gets out of hand, and the results aren't the best...



This promised to be an interesting experience, Jim thought as he shut the door for privacy. Being a passive conduit for a mindlink was nothing new, but it had never been for anything other than communication. He found himself wishing he had a better understanding of the human body. This entire thing was much more Jean's area than his own. Still, given the circumstances he was willing to try; at worst Fred would be no better than he'd started, and if it did succeed it might have broader applications.


"You don't have to sit on the floor if you don't want to," Jim told the boy as he settled himself onto the tile. "It's just a concentration thing to keep me focused. But you should probably sit on something -- Angelo might be okay, but once you're linked you'll have other things to think about besides your center of gravity. Do you have any questions?"

Fred, who was doing his best not to look apprehensive about the whole thing, smiled weakly at Haller, "I, uh, I ain't never had a problem with my center of gravity. I, uh, just want to, uh...you know? I mean, the easier it is for you..." Angelo's entrance saved Fred from making a bigger idiot of himself than he already had, and and grinned just as weakly up at his older friend as he entered, "Hey, Jello. Thanks, uh, again for comin'...."

"I told you I'd be here, buddy", Angelo said with a half-grin and a squeeze to Fred's shoulder. "Now, what's this about center of gravity?"

Fred patted Angelo's hand. Past everything in the Mansion, it was good to know who was with you come crunch time, "Uh, Doc Haller was just askin' me iffen I had any questions and, I, uh..." he turned to the other man in the room, false humor splashed across his anxiety, "...what, uh, what should I expect, you know?"


"Mostly the sensation will be physical," said Jim, cracking his knuckles as he looked up at the other two from his spot on the floor. "I'll be screening out actual thoughts, so don't worry about telepathic leakage. Basically, you'll feel what Angelo feels when manipulating his skin -- and if I can tune things right, maybe some of the reasoning behind it. I'm not sure I can accurately describe the sensation." The telepath furrowed his brow and glanced at Angelo. "How would you describe your control? Like flexing a muscle?"

"It's... somethin' like that", he said slowly, extending and twisting the skin of his fingers as he thought. "But with a lot more freedom than that. Muscles, when you tear them away from the bone or just tear them, you know about it, but I've never felt anythin' like that however far I push it. It only goes so far, but it doesn't hurt, it just stops."


Jim nodded and turned back to Fred. "It won't be exactly the same as your powers, but hopefully close enough to give you a starting point."


Fred nodded, and listened as the two men spoke. He inhaled and exhaled calmly, "Doc Grey was talking about that: she and the others, they figured I had some kinda control over my, uh, my stuff, but it was, uh, subconcious?" the last word turned up into a question. He shook his head a little, " That's why I wanted to do this. They, uh, they figured if I had concious control over the, uh, the mass stuff, then it wouldn't be painful anymore..."


"Most powers start out reflexive, physical or otherwise," Jim agreed. "Physical ones in particular can be difficult until you find some kind of example or a contrast that makes you realize what you can do. I guess we're basically trying to jerry-rig a jumpstart." The telepath rubbed his hands together one final time, then nodded his head towards the chairs and bed. "Okay. If you're both ready, take your seats on the furniture or floor of your choice, and we'll get started."

Fred nodded and held out a hand to Angelo, managing a weak chuckle, "Uh, heh...uh, you can get first pick?"

Angelo took the younger man's hand, reaching for Haller's as he snagged a chair and dragged it over. "This'll do for me."

Fred likewise pushed a chair in position, and took off his coat and did something he hadn't done in quite a while: moving his fingers about himself, Fred crossed himself quickly, and turned back to Haller, "Whenever you're ready, Doc."


The counselor gave Fred a crooked smile. "I have a few more semesters and a lot more clinic hours before I'm a doctor, but I'll take it as a vote of confidence. Anyway . . ." Jim reached up and took Fred's hand as well as Angelo's; a move significantly easier than it would have for a shorter man. The gesture was technically unnecessary, but physical contact helped him secure psychic contact. Briefly, he wondered if Angelo had known that or if it was simply habit from working with so many telepaths.

"Okay," he said, his eyes closed, "you two are linked. I'm trying to screen the extraneous stimuli . . . Angelo, could you do some basic manipulation to see if it's working?"

"Easy." He reached out to the bedrail, wrapping strands of skin around it and through the slats. "That do you, or should I try somethin' else?"


Jim nodded, eyes still shut. "Fred? Can you feel that?"

Fred's face was contorted in an odd mixture of concentration and pain. A buzzing creeped under his skin and made him...shake, almost. Like he'd been drinking coffee for two days straight. The pain was still there, a steady sharpness movie down his spine, but the buzzing, moving right under his eye and down through his body, that was defintely new.

"I can...kinda feel something...kinda like I'm...pulling...like I'm standing in a river or sumthin..." Fred restrained a yelp in pain. He imagined the session wouldn't be the easiest thing in the world, but pain was surprising no matter how you are presented with it.

Jim punctuated Fred's own suppressed yelp with a sharp intake of breath. "Sorry," he began, fumbling to dampen the connection. "Might've synced . . . a little too close. Body trying to interpret signals identically to Ange . . ."

Angelo, too, had winced at the sudden sharp pain down the link. "Is there... anythin' useful comin' through? Otherwise, we should stop."


All at once, the buzzing turning into an electric tightness in his chest, in his arms, everywhere. Searing white anguish pulsed and pumped through him and, by proxy, the other two.

"Y-yea, we sho-sh-shhhhhh" Fred's words slurred a, a micro second later, his eyes went wide and his face contorted in immense...pain. His body, all at once, seemed to inflate and collapse in on itself simultaneously, like a hideous flesh lava lamp. He pulled away from the hand in his and pushed the chair away from him so hard and fast it embedded itself in the far wall "SsHHhshhRRREAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!" he managed, as he mouth grew massive.


The reaction was instinctive; normally known for telepathy so scrupulously unobtrusive it was barely noticable, Jim severed the link so abruptly it spiked migraines behind the eyes of all three.

Responsibility leaked through the pain. Barely thinking, Jim forced himself to reach out to Fred in the hopes of stopping whatever had gone wrong, or at least lessening his pain.

Fred's now enormous hands grasped at his face. Thinking. It was getting harder to think. He screeched in pain and smashed his hands into the sides of his head as his body simply refused to hold a shape, to hold a thought.

His eyes, almost completely covered by a tumorous roll of fatty tissue, spotted Haller, in as intense pain as he was, trying to will himself back into Fred's head. As the older, svelte man's eyes rolled back and he dropped to the floor, Fred's terror and pain was peppered with guilt. Two good men seriously hurt because he had to get himself working...

The flesh and mass of his body burst out again. Guilt, and any other complex thought, was extinguished. He managed to moan as the folds and curves of his body shredded his clothes into something almost as unrecognizable as he. He howled and fell, squeezing what passed for his head.

Thoughts. Think. Can't? WhyGodwhatskinmovingroom Where? Painpainpainmovingseeping NonononoitsallwrongcantmovethinkgsomeonefriendsnofamilyfriendsallofthemVetteJulesDorJohnnySunderKyleEveryoneGod RoomwhereCoatcantwontstopwhywontitstopcolorWhite? SomeoneHelpGodGODGODPAINPAINGODPAINSTOP-

Callie?

The thoughts stopped. The tears stopped. He stopped.

Fred Dukes stopped.

Angelo felt like his head was trying to explode, still, but the pain in the rest of his body had at least gone away... if not until he'd overturned his chair trying to jerk away from a non-existent source. Peering at the other two through eyes slitted against the light, he quickly realized neither of them was in a position to summon help, so he steeled himself both physically and mentally for a loud noise.

With his voice and his mind, he yelled as loud as he could stand, "HELP!"

The first time he'd heard something for just a moment, Hank had moved into the main area of the med lab but couldn't spot the source of the noise. With Angelo's cry for assistance, the blue doctor sprang into action. Nearly taking the door off its hinges, Hank tore into the room and had to take a moment to process what was going on. There was a massive man laying on the floor face down with Haller and Angelo nearby. "What in Dante's nine-hells...?" Kneeling down next to the blob-like individual Hank tried to find a pulse. "Angelo, what happened here?" he asked, noting that Haller looked nearly as bad, but was still responsive.

"We were tryin' to help Fred with his powers", Angelo said as quietly as was still audible. "'Cause they're like mine, so we thought maybe a psychic link to show him how it felt to use mine... I don't know what went wrong, but it hurt."

The massive creature was one of the students, "Amelia! I require your immediate assistance in here!" He turned Fred on his side, with a little more effort than he would have normally thought required, and tried to check his pupils for dilation. "Angelo, I need you to go get Charles, can you do that?" The why or how of the situation would have to wait, they needed to get Fred Dukes back up and running, the boy simply wasn't responding to anything.

"I tried to call pretty loud both ways", Angelo told him. "He might already be on the way... but sure." He pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, pulling the chair back upright with him without thought.

"No, wait, you're not in any condition to see to the Professor's arrival, sit down and I'll take care of it," Hank hadn't been around telepaths recently and had forgotten that Charles could be summoned by thought rather than by messenger. Eyes closed for a moment, 'Professor, we have an emergency with a student down in medlab and will need your help.' "Alright, hopefully he'll be down soon, but we need to try to move Fred out onto the tables. Looking back at Haller, Hank half sighed and shook his head. "David, can you help us with this?" 'Where is Amelia?' Hank wondered as he positioned himself to care for Fred's neck and head during the carry.

Fred's body spasmed several times, as Doctor McCoy tried to asses the odd situation. As he was moved about, Fred's body shook and seemed to begin folding in on itself, looking much more humanoid than amorphous with each uncontroled shift...

"Think we're gonna have to move him too", Angelo muttered, still looking a little green but on his feet without support. "I think he got hit hard... Fred first?"

"Most definately, can you get his feet? I believe their rapid reduction in size may be helping our cause," Hank shined a pen light into Fred's eye and watched the pupil dilate. "He's becoming more responsive but his breathing is still shallow," Hank waited for Angelo to get into position. This had just turned into a very interesting day.