Logs:Hungry Ghosts

Hungry Ghosts
Dramatis Personae Charles, Robbie
In Absentia	2022-05-17 "You can tell me if I'm crazy, right?" (following after a lot of weirdness.)
Location <XAV> Medical Lab - Xs Basement
Gleaming and sterile, the school's medical facility is all cool science in contrast to the mansion's old-world old-fashion. All stainless steel and antiseptic tinge, the room is filled with the quiet whir-click of the various implements that comprise its medical equipment -- all state-of the art. The hospital beds are curtained off for privacy when they have patients, and in one of the alcoves there is a small operating theatre visible. More heavy-duty equipment is visible in the lab in the back, where the securely locked cabinets keep sensitive equipment out of the reach of teenage fingers. Robbie is here, seated in a chair, leaning back, eyes focused on the ceiling. His tattered denim jacket and hoodie have both been discarded; in their place, he wears a loose spare tee-shirt from the lab, slightly oversized for him -- hiding the butterfly stitches across his back (but not the two on his face, just above his left eyebrow). There's a monitor for his pulse on his finger, and... seated to his left (as per his recommendation), a portable fire-extinguisher. Robbie chews on his bottom lip, still staring up. "...it's acting real quiet," he mumbles. "I still don't think you... no one should be alone with me, right now, Mist -- um, Doctor?" he blushes as he corrects himself, uncertain. Inwardly, he thinks to himself: <<{I mean... this guy is a doctor, right?}>> Robbie's mind is a fierce, tangled knot of conflicting tensions, soaked in a sea of tumultuous anger (most of it currently directed at himself). Throughout the sea are sharp, jagged rocks -- anxieties regarding himself, his brother... and something else. Beneath that choppy, storm-wreathed ocean, that something else stirs -- a barely-detectable shadow. Like a shark prowling chum-infested waters. In a lightweight motorized wheelchair, Xavier sits across from Robbie, though a little offset to one side. He's wearing a light brown summer tweed suit with an azure blue tie and pocket square that makes his faded eyes look more vividly blue. "I am, but not a medical doctor. Most people around here call me Professor Xavier -- or just Professor -- but Charles is fine, if you prefer." He clasps his hands together in his lap and considers his guest. "Mister Reyes, Kitty and Blink brought you to me because I am a telepath. I can look inside your mind to discover whether this entity you call the Rider is part of you, or some external influence, and perhaps even communicate with it in a safe and controlled setting. To that end..." He gestures expensively at the room around them. "This facility has withstood many dangerous powers, and so have I." "Now, If you are not comfortable here with me alone, I can call someone else, but I am fairly confident I can manage." He taps his temple by way of indicating how he expects he'll manage. "I won't go prying for anything else, but I will hear any thoughts that come across your mind while I am doing this, if you are willing to give it a try." "I... uh." Robbie's eyes drift from the ceiling back down to Professor Xavier, his eyebrows lifting up higher and higher. "...a telepath," he repeats. "You're going to --" Something worried flickers across his expression, mixed with a tinge of hope, and maybe a flash of concern: "--I... I want to know if I'm -- am I crazy? You can tell me if I'm crazy, right? I..." He lifts a hand, rubbing at his face, fingers mashing up against his eye-sockets. "...yeah, okay, just... this thing -- whether or not it's me -- it's dangerous, okay? Like... really dangerous." Images briefly flick over Robbie's conscious thoughts; a man who looks like a demented camp counselor, staring up into Robbie/The Rider's gaze with an expression paralyzed in pure, raw horror. A skeletal hand crumpling an aluminum pipe-wrench as if it was made of tinfoil. A weed-whacker that is, for some inexplicable reason, spinning with fire. "...just... be careful?" he whispers, hand still kneading his face. "It's..." <<{--hungry, angry, wants to eat your soul--}>> "...dangerous," he repeats, again. Xavier blinks slowly at Robbie, but keeps his composure admirably through this somewhat halting and alarming explanation. "I can't tell you if you're crazy, but I can help you figure out where these powers are coming from, and what might be done to control them. In any event I will," he assures the young man, "be careful." A faint warmth washes over Robbie that somehow hasn't anything to do with an actual change in temperature. The stormy seascape in his mind doesn't calm, but there is suddenly a decently sized sailboat in its midst. Xavier is standing at the gunwale beside him, the scene dreamlike in that Robbie can nowise recall how he got there. "I know you haven't much control," the old man is saying, as though they were having a perfectly normal conversation and not in fact projections of themselves on an imaginary boat in Robbie's mind, "but is there anything that tends to...bring out the Rider?" His psychic senses are meanwhile extending deeper into Robbie's mind, delicately feeling for the something else far below the surface. "--{the... hell? How did we...?}" Robbie looks around, atop of the boat -- blinking, his eyes scanning the ocean around him. He's bewildered, but there's an immediate familiarity to this space; it's clear to Xavier that he's already intuited, in some sense, that they haven't traveled anywhere... but rather, the space within Robbie's mind is now a space they're occupying. The choppy water beneath the boat rolls and churns; the sky above is an ominous grey, with a cool, energetic wind... like a storm is moments away from making its approach. Robbie grips the edge of the boat, his eyes drifting down into the water. "...um. Usually... if I'm in trouble... or, um... it -- it tells me it smells hurt on people. Like, anybody you've hurt -- that hurt leaves a stink... and it picks up on it. The more hurt you've done, the harder it is to hold back. But..." Robbie's jaw tightens, continuing to scan the surface of the rolling ocean. "I don't know... if that's the truth, or if it's just lying." Xavier can feel the tangled, tightened edges of Robbie's anxieties; most of them are clustered around the image of his brother -- a distant silhouette in crutches, fading more and more each day. Missing; vanished. But as he probes deeper, a peal of thunder rolls in. The wind picks up. Xavier can feel something moving beneath the waves, stirring -- dark and hungry. "I have seen so very many mutations in my time." Xavier leans over the rail and gazes down into the dark choppy water. "The thing of it is, they all defy explanation, mine -- however commonplace, as power go --no less than yours. Or the Rider's, as the case may be." Xavier is trying to feel out the psychic shape of the thing beyond the vague ominous emotions that are the waters around them. "Are you able to remain conscious while the Rider is...in control?" The psionic warmth spreads down below the surface, as though the sun had come out over the tumultuous sea. His "voice", when he broadcasts it to the entity, is surpassingly calm and soothing. << Can you hear me? >> "Yeah. Kind of. Sometimes. It's like I'm... dreaming. But if I try, if I've got a lot of focus, I can kind of... push through it." Robbie's voice is slow and distracted, his eyes on the water. Another peal of thunder; the shadows stir. What originally looked to be as large as the boat is coming up, and... it's larger than the boat. << we can -- >> << {hear you} >> << smell you >> << {TASTE you} >> Psychic chatter bubbles up from the water, swirling up like a cloud of steam. Indeed -- the water around the boat is now starting to boil, churning and frothing... as the presence extends, expands... and becomes many presences. Voices; thoughts -- minds. Fractured and brittle, but forming a community around a single desire, a single need, a single want. When the voices 'speak', Xavier has the sense of layers upon layers of voices, speaking over one another -- mostly English, but other languages, too. Some verbal; some visual, some written -- some scarcely more than felt. << and that's not {all}-- >> Something pulls at Xavier. Not physically -- not, at least, in this manifestation of a physical realm. It's on another level, deeper... a sharp yank, as if trying to pull him to another realm, another mental landscape. Not hard enough to force him -- but hard enough to make it clear that this isn't a request. "Oh, bugger me," Xavier mumbles, very quietly. "Another one?"<< I will not go with you without explanation, Rider. And I want you to come speak with someone, someone you've put in danger. >> He makes sure Robbie hears him, too, even as his powers gather steel cables far below, weaving an immense web. "Speak, Robbie," he urges the young man, pressing index and middle fingers to his temple. "I'll relay what you say to the Rider." "This -- Rider? Are you -- what's going on?" Robbie speaks, his eyes drifting from Xavier to the water, then back to Xavier. And then -- Xavier feels the fragmented minds multiplying; a half-dozen, a dozen, dozens -- more and more. Some barely more than fragments of memories; some, fully-functioning psyches. What links them, what binds them, is trauma -- psychic scar tissue that scorches across each fragment, each person, like an angry snarl of flesh that has never quite healed. The voices, the minds, clutter up Robbie's mind-space -- and as they do, as the ocean grows more tumultuous, it becomes clear -- there are far more thoughts, far more minds emerging here that could ever be contained in a single brain. The sheer volume is -- << come with me. right now. for your own safety. >> The voice of an old man, ringing first through Xavier's mind, then echoing through his connection to Robbie -- to him. Robbie's eyes widen. The pull comes again. This time, it's not "down". It's "up". Into Robbie's mind. And Robbie reacts, feeling it, too. Strong, desperate -- but not enough to force either of them. Still, enough to make it clear -- this isn't a request. "That's -- that's the old man. I know him. He's like, part of the Rider--" The water churns harder. Voices hiss and snarl. Hungry. Hands -- some skeletal, some bloated and rotting -- rise up from the water, grabbing the boat by its edges. The shadow beneath them expands, until it swallows up the entirety of the ocean. << please. come with me, professor. we need to go somewhere safe. >> It pulls again. << the kid can come too, but we need to go right now. >> Xavier does not flinch at the host of minds coming awake, but he does draw a deep breath. The shields in his mind adjust, for anyone with the psionic senses to tell, and a new set flickers into existence around Robbie, looking like nothing so much as a giant soap bubble. When the undead manifestations of the Rider start climbing the boat, his lips compress and he stretches out one hand over the water. Beneath their feet, the bones of the vessel groan, and then the boat is lifting from the "water" as though plucked up by a giant's hand. Most of the hangers-on slip from the gleaming hull to rejoin the writhing mass, but a few scrabble up onto the deck. One zombie lurches toward Xavier and then...just turns aside and flings itself overboard. The next does the same, and another manages to swipe at Robbie, its sharp broken fingernails glancing off the shield without any apparent effect on its integrity. "I can't reach any of these, so I suppose if this old man wants to talk," Xavier says, distracted, as he sends that one off, too, "we should hear what he's got to -- aaaugh!" Another zombie, having climbed the opposite gunwale they were not watching, latches its jagged teeth onto his arm, tearing through fabric and skin alike. Xavier shoves it off of him -- far stronger than his slight frame would suggest -- and joins Robbie inside the bubble. "Next stop, old man," he says, then arches one eyebrow, "one of us may need to rebrand." More zombies have made it onto the boat and are pounding on the -- very un-soap bubble-like, as it turns out -- shield. "Beg your pardon, Mister Reyes," he says and reaches out to touch Robbie's shoulder. The boat and the zombies and the sea of corpses vanish -- -- and are suddenly replaced with... a park, in the middle of the afternoon on a sunny Spring day. It's a slightly overgrown public playground, separated from the nearby train-tracks via a gated fence, with woods stretching out on one side and a road with a few sparse double-homes on the other. The sun feels warm, and there are children at play -- Robbie, maybe 13 or 14... climbing atop of the jungle gym with a grim, focused expression. Another boy climbs right behind him -- younger, darker skin. The way this boy climbs implies he relies more on his arms than his legs. When young!Robbie reaches the top, he turns and crouches like a bird in its nest, watching the other boy climb -- chin atop his knee. A pair of briefly-abandoned crutches are propped up against a nearby post. Xavier and present!Robbie are seated on a park bench, watching the scene from some distance away. And... they're not alone. Seated between them is an old, hairy Nick Nolte-looking son of a bitch; a shaggy, bearded old man who's in desperate need of a trim. Clad in a black studded leather jacket, he's hunched forward with his elbows on his knees -- hands clasped together. Eyes on the scene ahead, maybe 20 yards away. "Most of 'em don't know how to cope with... warm fuzzies," the old man explains. "Confuses the shit out of 'em." For a moment, Robbie looks bewildered; the image of zombies rushing toward him, of Xavier's shield, the churning sea, Xavier's extended hand... all of it is gone, replaced with this. But the longer he sits, the more he seems to relax -- as if the tableau before them is familiar. His eyes are focused on the kids in the distance, too. Xavier is rubbing the side of his head and not the arm that had just been ripped open by a zombie, for beneath the bloody tatters of his sleeve the ragged wound has already healed without a trace. "Thank you." He turns to partially face the old man, his powers feeling around the mental architecture of the place for traps, defenses, or shields. "I'll keep that in mind. Robbie told me you are part of the Rider. I hope you will pardon my asking, but what -- manner of being are you?" No immediate shields or traps are apparent; they are squeezed deep in some unguarded warm and fuzzy corner of Robbie's mind. The old man shoves that double-handed fist into his face and proceeds to rub. But before he can speak, Robbie -- still watching the scene -- mutters: "He's the old guy I met back in the jail cell, that night. The one who... he's the one who gave me this... thing." "Not... 'zactly," the old man responds, "but yeah, kinda. Close enough, I guess." His head rises up from his fists. He passes a sidelong glance to Xavier. "This thing, whatever it is... each host, it kind of... remembers us. Mostly just the anger and pain, but not always. And if it remembers enough of the host, uh..." He straightens up, grins, and shrugs: "...those memories start thinkin' for themselves. I'm Johnny." Robbie's head snaps over: "Wait, am I...?" Johnny shakes his head. "No, not yet. You ain't been here long enough." Xavier meets Johnny's gaze steadily. "So you, and all those unfortunates out there, are the Rider's passengers. Or perhaps how Robbie's mind processed the trauma of such a powerful psionic intrusion." His brows crinkle and he lifts a hand to stroke his smooth chin. "Have either of you been able to communicate with the Rider in any meaningful way? It appears to be an immense hive mind, but I could not interface with it at all -- save through you, and yours is not the volition behind the Rider." "...kinda, yeah. The Rider's -- it's kinda all of us, I guess? It ain't just one guy. It's... the hunger. For pain. Pain you inflicted, or pain others inflicted. Mostly the latter. It's drawn to it. And when that hunger's rearing up, it's hard to fight it, hard to think. Whoever's in front just... it's a mess," Johnny says, dropping his face back into his hands. "Talkin' to this thing is like... Jesus. Imagine a swarm of locusts. A bunch of hungry critters all movin' in the same direction, at the same moment. And maybe, now and then, you can catch a few, take a look at 'em, even... communicate with 'em. Reason with 'em, get 'em to act against the others. But..." Mopping at his brow, he lifts his head, turning to Xavier: "Can you imagine tryin' to talk to the swarm?" "And that swarm... that's the Rider." "It's a swarm of angry ghosts. Okay. So," Robbie interrupts, his eyes still on the memory in front of him -- his voice containing a barely-hidden edge. Especially here in Robbie's mind, Xavier can feel the bristling, barely-contained anger: "...why the hell did you put that swarm on me?" Xavier lifts one brow slightly higher, but his expression of patient, avuncular concern does not otherwise change. "I can, actually." This doesn't sound glib -- exactly. It's only with some considerable reluctance that he adds, "But I might know someone better suited to have that conversation." "--I mean, technically, I'm not..." Johnny's nostrils flare. He leans back, staring up at the sky. "Actually, y'know what? Fuck that. That doesn't let me off the hook. Yeah, I put this shit on you. Because I was dying, and the Rider -- if you don't find a host, it'll find one itself. And the sort of people the Rider chooses... well. Let's just say that, at the time -- you and me, surrounded by cops? You were absolutely the best option." Robbie frowns at this, looking like he wants to ask more -- but his eyes flick to Xavier at the mention of 'someone better suited'. "...to talk to a hive-mind of angry ghosts? What, like... you... got a guy?"