Log: Amanda visits Megan in the Medlab for a chat.

[x-welshpixie.livejournal.com]

Pixie scribbled furiously on the sticky notepad for a while. The word “EVIL?” emerged, was made bold with additional lines, and then covered up with lines going the other direction. She sighed, ripped the doodle off the sticky pad, folded it in half and started harmless cubes on the fresh square. If she kept writing stuff like that, she probably wouldn’t get out of the medlab anytime soon. Even though it should be fairly obvious that she wasn’t evil anymore. She no longer had that thing riding around on her shoulders with its tail wrapped around her. People had seen that, right?

The evil was gone… she knew it was. She felt like herself again, only slimy with shame.

There was a knock at the door and then the sound of the lock turning. Amanda was paler than usual, with dark circles under her eyes, and the Xavier's sweats that had replaced her blood-stained clothing made her look far younger than usual. But there was also a sense of purpose in her face, and in her voice, when she spoke.

"You up for a chat, Megan?"

Pixie looked up from her cubes and froze as her gaze met Amanda's. Her mouth started to form the words “not really,” but she nodded her head in agreement. She tucked the pencil behind her ear and motioned for Amanda to enter, not just yet trusting her voice. She felt an uncomfortable mix of emotions gripping her insides. Her eyes flickered to the TV on the wall - the screen displaying just a shade of saturated blue - and back to the other woman, unable to look at her for too long but also wanting to make sure that she didn’t go away.

Amanda managed a faint smile. "'S all right, 'm not here to punish you or anything. But we to need to talk about what happened to you." She closed the door behind her and sat down in the chair beside the bed. "How're you doing? And if you say 'fine', I'll swat you."

Pixie returned the small smile, relieved. “I just keep going over everything in my head, trying to figure out what happened. It’s… not fun.” She ran her fingers though her pink hair. It was getting long again. “And you’re OK? I’m glad I didn’t… I mean, I’m glad you’re here and stuff."

"Believe me, I'm pretty glad I'm here too. Doc Jean patched me up and soon as I get back to New York, I'll ask the city for a pick me up." She looked steadily at the younger girl, taking in various changes, not all visible to the ordinary eye. "What you've been through... It'll leave some scars, 'm afraid. Things will change for you."

Megan looked up at Amanda through her hair, slightly taken aback by the honesty in her voice. Everything wasn’t going to be just fine. And she was right - they did need to talk. She exhaled slowly and began recalling the events of a few days prior. It was a bit jumbled, but she just let it spill out instead of trying to force it into cohesion.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go to the boathouse again. Before he grabbed me, there were these things. I heard whispers and scratching in the walls. I saw dark shapes moving out of the edges of my vision. It was all fucked up. Of course I didn’t think it was real at first. The teleporting was wrong, too. It felt like being forced into a gap between dimensions. It was all flat and sideways. And then… I don’t know. There was another Pixie. Or maybe there wasn’t. Have you ever had an out-of-body experience? I was watching as he performed a ritual in a castle and pulled something out of me. I felt like I was falling into pieces. I even saw my guts fall out of me, but it took the shape of a person on the floor. And then she very slowly got up off the floor and held my pieces back together. She held me in a clawed embrace, wrapping herself around me. She had wings like mine, but also a tail.” Pixie hugged herself, pausing for a moment before continuing. "Then, together, we were whole again. Actually, more than whole. I felt… such a great power that I’ve never felt before."

The witch's face was set, but there was a certain fire in her eyes. "What Belasco did... he took away part of your soul to make a bloodstone, a source of power for him," she said quietly. "That other you, it was his evil filling the hole that he made in you. You managed to gain control of that evil when you were fighting Billy, but it will always be inside you." She paused, and reached over to place her hand over Megan's. "I'm sorry.”

“How was he able to do that?” asked the younger woman. She felt cold inside. So cold, Amanda’s hand felt warm by comparison. “Can any soul be siphoned off by a powerful enough demon? Or was I always… tainted inside?” She glanced down at the folded-up yellow square on the bed, the discarded scrap holding the crossed-out words “EVIL?”.

"The opposite, really. The last girl he took, she was just six years old." Amanda frowned, thinking of Illyana and the failed rescue all those years ago. "He needed pure souls for that particular ritual. So no, it was nothing you did, nothing inside you that drew him to you. He had been in the abduction period a long time and had plenty of time to make sure of what he was after and how he'd do the ritual."

"Six?" Pixie's face shifted to a thoughtful expression, half-disturbed, half-relieved. For a long stretch of a moment, she didn't say anything else. "Belasco-" she could barely spit out the distasteful name "-he's dead, right?"

Amanda’s smile was grim. “Oh, yes. Illyana… well, she had a score to settle. She was the last girl he took, after all. She called and let the Trenchcoats know Belasco was taken care of, and when we use that expression, it’s a permanent taking care of.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry and… thank you both.” Pixie leaned forward from the bed to hug her. She knew Amanda was right. She knew that things would never be the same or even truly wonderful. But right now, she felt totally safe and like her real self again.

Amanda returned the hug one-armed, the other being stiff from recent stabbings. Her smile was only a little strained, however - no reminding Megan of what had happened. "Well, you might not want to say that after your first class," she replied, a little slyly.

Pixie pulled out of the hug but remained poised forward as she asked, “My class? But, I graduated.” As soon as the words left her mouth, it began to dawn on her...

The blonde nodded. "Yeah. That'd be one of those changes. You can do magic now - I'm not sure how much, but we'll work it out. Once the winter hols are over, I'll be expecting you to join Topaz and Billy." She brushed a lock of hair - streaked with black in stark contrast to the pink - out of Megan's face. "I'll try not to be too hard on you."

Pixie nodded slowly, thinking, I can do magic. Evil Pixie had had powerful magic, at least teleportation, so the thought was a little scary and a little exciting. "Okay, I will be there." It hadn't really been a request.

There was no going back. If anyone knew the way forward, it was the powerful witch. Her new mentor.