xp_logs | Hotel California: Precursors (Reply)

Topaz meets Marie-Ange -- and, moments later, precognition.

Marie-Ange had wandered into and back out of the break room without word, and without seeming to notice the dark-haired young woman seated at the table with a book - she'd come in, set a kettle on, and then left. And then returned less than a minute later with a box wrapped in plain brown paper, and set it down in front of the girl. "My apologies, but I had not realized you were here, and then I wanted to get this before I forgot it."

Topaz hadn't really noticed Marie-Ange's entrance, exit, or re-entrance, at least until the box was set down in front of her. She was waiting for Amanda and had figured settling down in the break room would be the best place to stay out of the way. She looked up now, blinking at the box. "Sorry? I mean, thank you," she corrected herself quickly, wondering if Ms. Colbert had confused her for someone else.

"You do not have a secret twin that I have mixed up with one of Amanda's students, correct?" The question ... seemed normal, but was delivered with a slightly impish smile, and Marie-Ange nudging the box in Topaz's direction. "Emma arranged for several of those clever tea calendars to be delivered, and I set one aside for you."

"It's entirely possible, actually." Topaz's eyes flitted back to the box, intrigued. "Really?" She'd seen the link on the journals - it'd looked absolutely brilliant. "Thank you." There was quite a bit more enthusiasm infused in her voice this time - and maybe a small bit of surprise.

"You have a twin? Or no?" Marie-Ange was confused, clearly, and squinted at Topaz, trying to see if she was teasing or not. "Did your classmate wish for more magical students? Because if he created a twin for you, Amanda is going to magic him into a trash skip."

"No one would ever want to create a second me," Topaz said with a bit of a snort. She'd more meant she very well could have a twin somewhere - knowing nothing about one's biological family was a bit of a bother sometimes. "I'd hate to see what would happen if Billy tried that."

"I can think of at least two people who would want a second you." Marie-Ange said. "But perhaps not for respectable purposes. And if Billy tried it, Amanda would magic him into a trash skip, as I said. Between you and me and whatever listening devices my co-workers have planted, I think Billy is giving Amanda many more grey hairs than you are. You are much more her type of student. Quiet, troubled... not so American..." She made a gesture at the tea, and smiled. "I think Billy would not enjoy the tea so much, no?"

Topaz blinked at Marie-Ange, a little bewildered. "What - no, never mind. Don't wanna know." Her eyes skimmed around the room at the mention of listening devices. "You think so? Guess I'll just have to try harder then, m'not a very good apprentice if I'm not responsible for at least half the grey hairs."

"You most assuredly do not want to know, but will probably find out eventually." If the teenager could be a little cheeky, Marie-Ange could be cryptic. "But since Amanda has given Doctor Strange all of his, it is only poetic justice."

She wondered if all precogs were like this, or if Ms. Colbert was just having a little fun at her expense. "I'll take your word for it." That was all she could do.

"Excellent, because I would not want to be responsible for any more therapy than you probably are already required to have after fighting internet myths." Marie-Ange said. "Here, I was about to put a kettle on." Well, an electric kettle, at least, and by on, she'd meant 'plug the thing in', but it counted. "And you have five months of tea calendars to use up." Topaz was British, those would be gone in weeks. Marie-Ange was already through February herself, and she did not have a culturally required love of tea.

"Sure," Topaz agreed surprisingly easily. If Amanda was going to take forever, she might as well have tea to keep her occupied. She unwrapped the packaging, a small smile pulling at her lips when she saw the tea calendar. It really was ingenious.

The bustle of kettle and mugs and tea distracted both women for a while, as Marie-Ange found the spare mugs that were actually safe for guests - and clean, and Topaz fussed with her present. Slowly the light coming from outside the break room dimmed, and as Topaz glanced over, she saw the doorway filled with overlapping leaves, tan and earth-brown and tipped here and there with green.

Marie-Ange was silent, staring at the kettle with a slack expression.

Topaz blinked, staring at the leaves as they blocked off the doorway. Bewildered, she looked back at Marie-Ange to see what she made of this, only to find that the older woman's attention was otherwise occupied. "Ms. Colbert...?"

The voice broke through, and Marie-Ange looked over her shoulder, locking eyes with Topaz. "Spirit, blood and desire, orbiting their mayor. One near, and one far, and one upstairs in the den making noodles." She glided to the table and bent over it, drawing on the plastic tabletop with a wax crayon that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

Topaz froze when Marie-Ange met her gaze, and she swallowed hard, breathing out shakily. "Ms. Colbert?" She said again, stammering a bit as the woman began drawing on the table. Something twinged in the back of her head, and she shook her head quickly, almost afraid to look away from the redhead.

The swirls on the table started to take on a sort of structure, red wax becoming feathers and licks of flame curling around wings. Marie-Ange took no notice of Topaz beyond a few curious blinks as she kept drawing. The wings curved around a woman, embracing her like a cloak, covering her shoulders and skimming around her waist and legs. What seemed at first to be a hood of the same style became a corona of hair, bright red in multiple layers of wax crayon.

Topaz's gaze slid between the drawings and Marie-Ange, trying to understand what was happening, and trying to figure out if she should try and get someone. She didn't really know anyone but Amanda, but she was pretty sure if she went out and said, "Ms. Colbert is drawing on the table" to the first person she saw, she'd probably get a reaction.

The crayon broke with a snap - louder than it probably should have been, unless you took notice of how tightly Marie-Ange was gripping it, but her drawing continued. She stretched across the table, and braced herself with one hand, and began drawing twisted looking figures surrounding the woman. Some were featureless solid red shapes, only recognizable as humanoid, solid red with scribbled lines that connected them. Some, recognizable despite the medium. A tall man with unruly hair, another man with a blank face, and red eyes that stood out against the dark table - and a short woman with a trio of little faces orbiting her, including Topaz's own face.

Topaz recognized two of the figures easily enough - Mr. Haller and Amanda. Her own face among Amanda's students. She had no idea what the other red humanoid things were supposed to be. "Okay," she murmured, more to herself as she backed away, looking over to the door. She needed to get someone. The door was still blocked. Now would have been a brilliant time to be able to do an energy blast spell.

Marie-Ange leaned into the drawing and began whispering something incomprehensible in Latin. Her drawing took a much more architectural tone, obelisks and domes and classic columns, and the solid red figures danced in them. As the precognitive drew, the drawings grew up out of the table slowly, like wax unmelting itself, and then the devils did dance, a grotesque caper of torment around the red-winged woman with Dr. Grey's face.

Topaz's eyes snapped straight back to Ms. Colbert as she started murmuring. She vaguely recognized the Latin - it almost sounded like fragments of a spell - but she was more interested in the fact that the drawings had suddenly come to life. Was that...Dr. Grey? What the hell was going on?

The figures, now fully emerged from the wax drawings paused, and shuddered like gelatin, and began to slump over, and then stopped entirely. Marie-Ange's head snapped up, and she swore and planted one hand down on the crayon marks on the table. "Get my phone, take photographs. Now, please." One eye was closed, and she was clearly in pain, face white and drawn.

The sudden switch a bit jarring, but the sense of urgency was enough to propel Topaz into action without any question. She found Ms. Colbert's phone in one of her pockets and set to work with snapping pictures of the rather disturbing crayon scene.

The images were twitching, perpetually in the process of falling down and then being rebuilt, and so was Marie-Ange. Her fingernails dug little curlicues in the wax on the table, and her closed eye was twitching erratically. "Go get Amanda. Interrupt her call." She said, getting the words out through gritted teeth.

Right. Okay. Topaz whirled on her heel, regarding the blocked door for a brief moment. Okay. Okay. On the bright side, there was enough alarm of her own that she didn't have to try and draw on Marie-Ange for a spell. The shield ballooned out, blowing through the wall of leaves blocking the door, and Topaz took off into the office to find Amanda.

The imaged leaves fell like rain in wet splats on the floor, and Marie-Ange made a pained noise, trying to keep the rest of the images up. Pictures were good but if she could keep them around until Amanda - or someone - arrived, they could help her analyze them. She forced her fingers flat, smoothing out the wax. "Chestnut and topaz are both from the november month. Remember that when you are surprised by the asking."

The search for Jean is becoming more urgent . . . until an unexpected phonecall.

Another name off the list. Scott's eye stayed focused on the pad in front of him as he scored a line through the name of another one of Jean's friends. He'd been slowly working his way through a list of anyone they knew in the Washington area in the time since Haller and the Professor had told him that she had vanished from Cerebro. Scott really didn't like how often people seemed to be disappearing from Cerebro recently, especially people who were important to him.

Dropping the notepad Scott sighed and rubbed his hands across his eyes. Every phone call was exactly the same, 'No we haven't seen Jean recently, and you two should come visit next time you're in the Washington area.' It was getting frustrating but unless Charles could come up with something new on Cerebro it was all Scott could do for now. The sound of a vibrating phone cut through Scott's reverie and he scrambled to pull his phone out of his pocket. "Hello. Jean is that you?" Only static answered Scott and he reluctantly withdrew the phone from his ear staring at the screen. "Huh, that's weird. I need to get Doug or Sarah to look at my phone, someone has to be playing games, I'm pretty sure 000-000-0000 isn't a real number."

"Unless it's one of them. What's that, the second time? How many people have that number?" Jim continued thumbing through the George Washington University directory for a likely-looking number he hadn't yet tried. He was using his cell to keep the professor's main line free on the off chance Jean called in. Charles' palpable worry for his first student had Jim on edge; the man was now sitting in Cerebro running through whatever variations of scanning he could come up with, literally alone with his thoughts, and all Jim could do was call generic numbers. "If it's a joke, this isn't great timing."

"I don't think either of them would," Scott began before he fell silent, maybe someone might think it was a funny prank to pull. The X-Man just wasn't in the mood for it though, "There probably is a better time for them to pull this," Scott agreed letting his phone fall onto the desk. "She had lunch with her professor and then just seemed to vanish. No-one's heard from her or seen her since. You don't think someone kidnapped her do you?" The only people Scott could think of who could make someone disappear this completely weren't friendly to the mansion and its inhabitants.

"Jean? I think there's a very short list of people who could pull that off." Jim shook his head. "Let's get through the other possibilities first. I'm going to start calling hospitals. If there was a manifestation incident she could've ended up there. Not necessarily as the patient, certain powers can scramble psi. If she's watching someone like that . . ."

"Then maybe that's messing with Cerebro," Scott finished the thought. "And if she's in the hospital then she wouldn't have her phone on. But this is Jean, if something like that came up she'd call us and let us know what had happened, if only so this doesn't happen and we don't start panicking."

"Normally, but--"

The phone on the desk rang: Charles' direct line. The telepath broke off and hurried to answer it.

"Professor Xavier's office," Jim said. "The professor is engaged at the moment. This is David Haller. --oh, hello. What's going on?"

For a few moments he only listened, but whatever the voice on the other end was saying caused an expression of increasing concern.

"Hold on a minute," Jim told the caller. He put his hand over the receiver and looked to the older man.

"Scott, I think you need to take this."