xp_logs | (no subject)

x-psylocke.livejournal.com posting in

An encounter that changes everything.

Walking down the hallway, both hands jammed in his pockets and smiling to himself, Miles rounded the corner leading to the room he had been assigned to. This was still a marvel for him, truth be told. A real bed. Soft clean bedsheets. Food and water available at any time. He'd never known any other home than the freak show, beyond dim memories of another life sometimes creeping in through his dreams, but that didn't matter anymore. He was home now. And had a family all of his own.

All week, the little stirrings within the school began to grate on her nerves. Ignorant children, whinging about the harshness of high society living. It was enough to make Kwannon want to slam every one of them into the walls. Hard.

As she traversed the halls, she thought of another child, remembering the discovery, she made over New Years. The little bug Alison had attached to her leg had an affect on her, a rather nasty one, in fact. Something so unnerving that it made her counterpart, twitch with hope, which that couldn't be allowed.

Turning the corner, Miles tries to whistle quietly to himself again - he'd been practicing for a year now, trying to imitate one of the children of the freak show who had the most uncanny ability to replicate any song he heard by whistling. Faint whistles ressonated down the hallways as he neared the corner. He turned and continued, not realized that he was so intent on the whistling that he had turned down the wrong hallway.

Her head snapped up at the faint sound. Closing her eyes, she honed in on the source of the noise and grinned. Little bug without its' mother. How....perfect. She followed the slightly off-keyed whispering, quickening her pace. She turned around the corner, seeing the slightly green child, lost in his own world.

The only thing that jarred Miles out of his whistle induced lack of awareness was the sudden
feeling that everything had just gone silent. There was no change in the corridor of course - but years of abuse had taught him to know when he was being looked at a certain way. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked up.

The hallway deserted, Kwannon, kept herself within the safe zone. Yet she itched to get closer, forcing a comforting smile on her face. Didn't want to scare the little one before her purpose could be acted out. "Hello, Miles. Having fun, are we?"

Miles blinked slowly, and carefully took a step back - he wasn't sure why, but experience told him there was something off about the way she was moving towards him, the way she smiled at him. "Miles whistling," he offered hesitantely. He'd rounded the corner and she'd come up behind him - and the hallway behind him was a dead end. Hands still in his pockets he paused in his backing up. Surely here was safe. And Betsy was Alison's friend.

"I always loved that song," she said faintly. "You do it justice." He smiled back up at her. It was now or never, she thought. She moved within the comfort zone and her face twitched. "Want to come with me for a walk. We can whistle together and I can teach you some songs, I know."

Miles watched the expression on her face, and found himself stiffening slightly as he looked up at her, and uncertain look entering his eyes. Everything within him was screaming "badness" and he'd learned to listen to those instincts long ago. Hand curling around the panic button in his pocket, he took a beep breath. "Miles have to go see Alison, now."

Her long-standing ability to study body language told her everything. The boy didn't trust her. But, it didn't matter. She stared at his hand, the one she knew was entrenched around the warning signal. "Oh, look over there," she pointed behind him.

Miles eyes didn't move from her. In fact, they widened as the woman he knew as Betsy, Alison's friend, moved closer toward him.

And closer she came to the young mutant, the more she knew something was happening to her. She eyed the young boy as his hand digged deeper into his pocket. Ah, the cowbell, she mused. It was the name she'd taken to calling Alison's idea of tagging her property. Galavanting within the staff's thoughts at night, she knew that Miles' hand was wrapped tightly around the security signal Hank had created for him. So, he suspected her. No matter.

Kwannon reached for Miles, her hands visibly shaking. "No need to worry, little slug. This will be over soon and I promise, you won't feel a thing."

Miles's eyes flickered for a moment, widening as she grabbed the hand firmly entrenched within his pocket. She pulled the device from his grip, but not before he activated it.

Miles stared at her with horror filled eyes, trembling in her grasp. "Little slug" she'd called him. Nothing new that insult, one he knew only too well in fact and which was usually soon followed by a beating. Only her words promised him something entirely and with the
undertone in her voice... he whimpered, so terrified he couldn't even think to struggle or scream, hanging on to one thought alone. Alison will save Miles. Alison will save
Miles. Alison will save Miles.

"Move it! I don't have time to indulge you." She grabbed the remote from his hands and carried him across the hall and into a more secluded hallway. She would only have a few minutes, she realized. And Elisabeth pulled him forward, from the hall, by his collar
and into the hallway, shakily. She stared at her hand, then at him. "What are you doing to me?"

"Damn Leech," she seethed. She raised her hand to place the first in a series of brutal punches to his small frame. And as her tremoring hand rose, she knew the first blow would have enough force to knock him unconscious. Yet, she could not bring her hand down. It was then, she knew something was horribly wrong.

Feeling a veil cloud over her telepathy the exact moment she went for Miles. And it was then, she felt the stirring from within. The lines of separation began to blur. Kwannon's chest heaved as her control broke. Angrily, she slammed Miles to the wall, as she screamed. The once calm demeanored telepath fell to the floor, grabbing her head, incapcitated. "No, you can't!"

Miles didn't know what was going on. Betsy was acting in a way he'd never been told was possible for her - in fact in a way he knew wasn't something anyone in the mansion would expect of her. His ears rang from being slammed into the wall, and he couldn't help a sob at the memories welling within of similar abuse, for so many years... but one thing he did know. Unshakably so. His power affected other people's powers, and it always worked... always. He'd never be able to outrun her. But if being close to him created this effect, maybe staying as close as possible was exactly what he should be doing. Drawing a shuddering breath he pushed away from the wall, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and clinging to her shaking frame, regardless of the fear pounding in his mind.

It was as if her mind had been ripped open, each agonizing second, her control slipped through. And within the vessel of Betsy Braddock, there was the sound of revertebrating doors opening. Unleashing something while the walls crumbled. And the halls filled with screams, as she teetered over the edge of insanity.

Eyes tightly screwed shut, ears ringing from the piercing shrieks, Miles tried not to scream as well - he was brave, he knew it. That's what everyone had told him, when he'd arrived at the mansion. So he hung on as best he could, hoping someone would come soon, because as brave as he was, this was also terrifying him to death.

The shaking stopped, Betsy's formed stopped moving. A raspy voice broke through the quite. "Run," she croaked. "Run Miles. Find Alison....much too strong." Betsy broke out in a series of tremors. "Find Mommy for me."

After hesitating a heartbeat, Miles tightened his hold on her shoulders for a moment, the distress in Betsy's eyes holding in place - as though he were meeting someone entirely new for the first time... someone he wanted to stay, instead of the person he'd known before as Elizabeth Braddock. And then time resumed and Miles let go, turning on his heel and pelting down the hallway as fast as his legs could carry him, scrambling around the corner madly - only to run straight into Alison, who scooped him up in her arms with a muted sound of relief at finding him unharmed, the tracker in her hand dropping to the floor, forgotten.

Sobbing at the words, because now that an adult was there Miles didn't have to be brave anymore, he pointed down towards the corridor he'd just run from. "Betsy needs Alison's help! Miles tried but coulnd't! Have to help now!"

Alison set him down, picking up the tracker and putting it in his hands, breath stopping as she spotted the swelling around his wrist, and the way he favored it even as he cradled it to his chest absently, dancing from foot to foor while gazing pleadingly at her. "Go find Mr Marko. Now. Go!" She sent him on his way, having picked Cain by pure reflex, and headed towards the corridor at a quick jog, not allowing herself to look back. She was between Miles and whatever had scared him so. And Betsy needed her help.

Kwannon push through the weak hold that Betsy held her in. She'd almost won over the English bitch before the slug got away. Almost. "No!" She howled.

She leaned on the wall, her breathing ragged. And there in front of her, stood Betsy. A grim smile on her lips. "You will not win, Kwannon. I am no longer locked in like an animal. You will have to deal with me, now. Not a child."

Turning the corner, scanning the hallway carefully, Alison paused as she saw Betsy slowly sliding to a kneeling position on the floor not to far away, holding her head and grimacing in pain. She ruthlessly repressed the instinct to run over to her, instead assessing the situation, making certain no one else was there, before even considering taking a step closer. Because if no one else was there... that meant only one person could have held on to Miles' wrist tightly enough to bruise.

Betsy.

"I did, I will again," she growled. "You will not stop me!"

The mirage stood firmly in front of her. "Correction. I was weak. You gave me time to heal, an opportunity to thrive. And while you slept, I became well enough to fight. Miles only pushed forward the inevitable."

Alison padded towards Betsy slowly, careful to not make any noise at all, doing her best to stay out of the woman's peripheral vision as she muttered to herself angrily - apparently entirely absorbed in whatever she was focusing on, ignoring the outside world completely.

"It is my turn!" Kwannon cried out. "I thrive here. You will not have it back!"

"Perhaps," Betsy mused, watching Alison move toward them, silently. "But, I hightly doubt that." Betsy closed her eyes and pushed within Kwannon's boundaries, fighting back. It worked as the form of Betsy Braddock fell back to the floor, crying out in pain.

Alison's hand fell to the pager on her hip, pressing the button assigned to Hank's pager a few times in a pre-arranged signal that he'd informed the staff of - urgent, find me now, medical emergency. She trusted that a page of that nature from her would also prompt him to advise the professor in turn, or so she hoped.

Taking a deep breath she stepped in closer, watching intently - Betsy was on the floor, crying out in pain. And she couldn't just stand by and watch, doing nothing. So she knelt down beside her, and laid a hand on her shoulder, hoping she wasn't doing the wrong thing, and steadied the thrashing woman so she woudln't hurt herself.

"It is only a matter of time, Kwannon." Betsy said resolutely. "And I plan to reclaim what is mine."

The hand on her shoulder shocked Kwannon enough to refocus herself back into the hallway. Breaking the link, she snapped her head up as the mage of Betsy disappeared. "Don't. Touch. Me."

A pensive expression greeted her words, the concern stil lurking in Alison's eyes still present, but being replaced by something else entirely as she saw Betsy was "all right".

"Don't touch you?" she asked smoothly, taking her time in looking Betsy over, clearly pointing out that she was in a less than normal position with her attitude alone. She removed her hand from Betsy's shoulder however, but remained kneeling beside her, waiting.

Her head rang, loudly, as she turned to face Alison. Anger laced through her words, as she spoke. The tremors still present. "Are you deaf? Or are you being profusely annoying on purpose."

The look in Alison's eyes cooled further, a far contrast from her usual outbursts of temper. "You're shaking," was all she said, head tilting to the side. Ready to dodge if need be, in the face of that much antagonism. "Head hurting, Betsy?" Because now that Betsy had snapped out of whatever had been causing her to behave that way, what had happened to Miles earlier had Alison's full attention.

A side long look of disgust, gave Alison her answer. Rising from her crouched position, she tried to place as much distance between herself and Alison. She leaned against the adjacent wall, watching the Blaire witch and that deceiving look of concern. Kwannon would've scoffed at it, if it wouldn't have made her head explode into tiny irretrievable pieces. She placed a tight smile on her lips, face twitching in pain. "I'm dealing with it. From time to time, I've been suffering from relapses of the surgery, it's never been this....severe before."

"You look like you got bashed on the head with a two by four. Repeatedly," Alison observed clinically, taking in every single details about Betsy, noting posture and expression.

"You're powers of observation have always been appreciated," Kwannon said through gritted teeth.

"Why did Miles run away?" she asked, almost as though she were talking about the weather.

Relaxing her stance against the wall. Kwannon's mind already concocting a viable story to tell. "I don't recall exactly. I remember seeing Miles, it went dark for a moment. The next thing I remember is his small hands wrapped around me. He was shaking and so was I." To add the final touch, she made her hands mimick the tremors and looked up at the object of her disdain. She swallowed as much pride as she could, forcing out words she would never let her employer hear her speak, in her other life. "I'm scared, Ali. I don't know what to do."

Too neat. Too perfect a surrender after the behaviour Betsy had been showing for the last months. But it was a good act, one Alison hated herself for refusing to believe. It was easy, really, to let concern and worry for Betsy flood her mind and take over, easy for her to step closer and offer Betsy a supporting shoulder. "Come on. Let's get you up to your room, and I'll have Hank drop by to check up on you later..."

Closing her eyes for a moment, she scanned the connecting hallways. There were too many around. The scattered shells of bodies left behind would lead Xavier to her and she didn't have the strength for that now. The glowbug didn't believe her, but she couldn't act on it. There was plenty of time to plan her exit. She opened her eyes, looking back to Alison, biting back a nasty retort. "Yes. That sounds...lovely."

Alison nodded, concentrating only on getting Betsy back to the door of her room, letting her handle things on her own once there under the excuse of needing to go fetch Hank for her. Instead, as soon as the door to Betsy's room closed, Alison trotted off, months of what shielding a non telepath coudl achieve setting into place as she went to find Miles, to find out as much as she could of what had just happened. That the talk would happen downstair in Hank's lab would only ensure that Hank would know as well, and inform the Professor as needed.

You rock my world, Will. =)