Logs:Demon Magic Bullshit
| Demon Magic Bullshit | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | 2022-05-16 "I don't think telepathy can give you a healing factor or turn you into a -- fire skull? " (immediately after a nick-of-time rescue, with a cameo from an an emoji-challenged Boomer. ) |
| Location
<NYC> Some Rooftop - Hell's Kitchen | |
Blink does not linger on the rooftop, but portals herself and her charges to what looks like an alleyway and from there to another rooftop, much higher up, without letting go of them. It's hard to tell what kind of building this is, but it looks sterile and commerical, with the Hudson shoreline and the northern end of the docks in view. Blink is wearing a knee-length hanfu-inspired dress in lavender trimmed with green, hooded like so many of her clothes, gauzy purple pants underneath, and green cloth slip-on shoes embroidered with colorful stylized swallows. She throws her hood back now and turns a full circle to check that there's no one else around, no Guardians in the air and no sirens coming nearer. "Okay," she says, finally looking back at Kitty and Robbie. Her eyes are very wide and it makes her oversized deep green irises look kind of intimidating when they zero in on the arrow still sticking out of Robbie. "You...probably need to get that looked at right?" Robbie's still in the same position Blink snatched him in -- crouched on the ground, head angled back, staring at the sky (rather than a woman with a bow and arrow)... clad in a hoodie that's in tatters, the smoldering remains of a completely obliterated backpack (one that's half-slipped off his back), with an arrow jutting out the side of his arm. Wisps of smoke rise from his face (streaked with a trickle of blood on the left side). It takes Robbie a full two seconds to process the rapid series of portaling that brought him here -- only now starting to recognize he's not where he was a few moments ago. His head sweeps back and forth, struggling with the overwhelming sense of vertigo, searching the rooftop -- before settling on Blink as she returns. Meanwhile, the wisps of smoke have stopped. His hand touches the arrow shaft again, staring at her: "Wh... what just -- huh?" "Thank you so much Blink you're a lifesaver -- You asshole." Kitty spins from her friend to her 'friend', the last veneers of her relative calm seeming to drift off with Robbie's smoke. Her eyes are full of rage and hurt and fear -- one hand darts out to grab Blink's wrist, holds tight as if that would protect both of them from More Fire. "What the fuck was that? You said you were human." Blink opens her mouth to explain, then closes it again to avoid interrupting Kitty. She seems oddly nonchalant about the actual grabbing but still alarmed about the arrow in Robbie's arm. "Kitty, maybe he didn't know. Or...just manifested? Just now?" She blinks rapidly at Robbie, the effect of the gesture more dramatic on her than most. "Is the -- smoke? Going to be a problem with getting treatment because..." She gestures at the arrow with her free hand. Robbie grimaces, his grip on the arrow tightening. Hard to say whether or not it's at Kitty's words, or at the arrow itself. Rather than answering Kitty's accusation: "It says... the Rider says, hospital is probably a bad idea, right now. Says it can... take care of it." And then the arrow is slowly being pushed out. Not pulled. It might look that way, judging by how hard Robbie grips it (and how he grits his teeth and hisses as it moves). But all he's doing is holding the arrow. It's moving by itself, slowly pushing out of the wound... until there's a trickle of blood, and then -- a wisp of smoke. The bleeding stops. He throws the arrow aside; it clatters to the ground. A curious, partially melted syringe is on the tip -- Robbie hasn't noticed. He's too busy rubbing at the spot where the arrow hit, still grimacing. "I'm human. Honest. I got tested and everything," he mutters. "This is... I'm really sorry. I thought I had this thing under control. This is -- this is really hard to explain." "He knew." Kitty's jaw sets, hard. "He asked me to get him out of there like-- like he knew what was coming. You knew -- " Her eyes widen as the arrow is pushed out of Robbie's body. "That's baseline physiology to you? That's -- " she flaps her free hand at the arrow. "-- how the fuck. Does that and the fire skull equal human." Her grip on Blink's wrist tightens, her breathing speeding up. "No don't pull it out!" Blink cries, but too late, and then she's just staring at the sizzling and the smoke. "Okay. Okay, right so, you heal. The tests aren't perfect, and I get you're shaken up but humans don't -- " She looks back at Kitty, eyes impossibly wider. "Wait he already knew --" She breaks off yet again when she catches sight of the syringe melted at the end of the arrow. "{Fucking demon magic bullshit...}" she mutters in Mandarin, then switches back to English, "Hey, Kitty, maybe -- you want for to maybe, take a minute? You both probably are having some adrenaline crash..." "It ain't me, it's... {How the fuck do I even explain this?}" Robbie flips from English to Spanish, slowly working his injured arm up and down. He grimaces; his other hand drifts to his stomach. He looks a little nauseous. "Look, I don't know how the hell this works, alright? I'm not a mutant. But the Rider, he is." An uncertain look flickers over Robbie's face. "At least... I hope he is. Otherwise, uh... otherwise, he raises some serious theological questions." “I’m fine,” snaps Kitty, pretty obviously Not Fine. “I am having a perfectly normal day finding out I brought an out of control mutant to the protests who has been lying to me for however the fuck long!” Her grip tightens to the point of causing pain before phasing into an intangible fist in the middle of Blink’s wrist. Looks back at Robbie. “Who,” she says, voice coming back to a normal volume, though still veeeeeeery strained, “is ‘The Rider’.” Blink only mouths 'the Rider', glancing at Kitty in confused commiseration. "Yeah, what...she said?" She turns back to Robbie, a deep frown twisting the geometric markings on her face. "I know it can be scary when you don't know what's going on with your powers. I really do! My family -- my whole village -- when I was little, thought I was..." She blushes a lovely purple-pink. "Whatever. They thought my powers were magic. And I couldn't control it, and people got hurt. But there are people here who can help you figure that out." "I --" Robbie's face contorts from a look of frustration to a look of befuddlement. He seems to be genuinely contemplating what Blink is suggesting. His eyes drop back down to his hand; he clenches and unclenches it. "...I'm... almost certain...? That this isn't me. I mean, I don't know. I guess there's some chance that... do mutants ever have, like... another completely different person inside them?" He takes a breath: "The Rider is... he's... what you saw, down there. He says he hops from host to host. 'My Ride', he calls us. Says he's old. He..." Robbie grimaces again, rising to his feet. He seems a little uncertain on his feet, almost wobbly. "I know this sounds batshit, but... he knows things. Things -- things nobody could know." Kitty meets Blink's gaze and mouths back 'what.' To Robbie, very seriously: "Telepaths. We often have other people in our heads." She does not seem to know what to do with the rest of this information, other than add -- "Yeah. That sounds like. Telepathy. And also batshit." Blink manages to keep a somewhat straight face through this explanation, though it's clearly a strain. "Y-yeah, telepaths can do all kinds of things, including 'ride' along in your head. I don't think telepathy can give you a healing factor or turn you into a --" She looks to Kitty for confirmation. "-- fire skull? But a telepath can make you do stuff with your own powers or...convince you you're human for some reason." She shakes her head as if that would clear away all of this. "Or it could be something else, who know like I'm a night elf who makes space doors. Look, I don't know what's going on with you and this 'Rider', but if he's messing with your head --" She looks at Kitty again, kind of helplessly. "This is way above our lack-of-pay grade. But we know people who may be able to help you." "No, he's not like -- it's..." Robbie's eyes widen. "{Am I just...? Oh, fuck.}" He shakes his head. "He's not..." He wobbles back, briefly losing his balance; he slowly sinks to the ground, knees folded up. Both elbows drop atop of his knees, dropping his face into his hands. "This thing is... it might just be in my head? Or someone screwing with me? Or... oh, God. It's..." He lifts his head up, his expression one of increasing horror: "It... it hurts people. It kills people. Horrible, terrible people. That's -- that's what it tells me, but..." His tone gets very soft: "I feel really sick. I think -- maybe I... maybe I need to be locked up, somewhere." Blink's first glance towards Kitty isn't returned -- she's watching Robbie sink back to the ground, jaw working as if she has more to ask -- but something in Robbie's petrified expression stops her. When she does turn to meet Blink's gaze, Kitty's lips are tight, her eyes worried. "I can drive if you don't have time to get us all the way there," she says to the other woman quietly. She uncurls her intangible fist, makes it solid again as she goes for her phone and taps out a message. "You are not getting locked up. But -- help? We can make that happen."
Blink's eyes are going wide again as Robbie crumples slowly to the ground. She kneels down about level with him and starts to reaches out before shrinking back, her face paling. "Woah, that sounds -- really worrying. But like I said we don't really know what's going on, here." Her eyes dart up to Kitty's face, her lips press thin. "But, yeah we'll -- try." Her tone lifts very slightly at the end, just a little uncertain.
Kitty puts her phone away, meets Blink's eyes and nods. "Professor's looped in -- his try might be a little better than ours." She kneels down, throws one of Robbie's arms across her shoulders. "Up you come, fire demon guy. The doctors will see you now." | |
