Logs:On a Rampage
| On a Rampage | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia | 2024-04-27 Guide them away from danger if possible and defend them from it if not. |
| Location
<XAV> Xavier's Bedroom - Xs Third Floor | |
Charles Xavier's apartment has remained more or less unchanged through the decades of renovation that transformed his family's huge ancestral manse into a school. It is modest by the standards of the wealthy, but then it had only been meant to house him in his youth. The receiving room just inside the door is sumptuous with old world aristocratic splendor from the intricate Persian rug underfoot and the furniture in purple and gold to the gold-framed paintings on the walls. Double doors in each of the walls -- all fitted with automatic openers -- lead to a large bedroom, a moderately sized dining room with its own kitchen and pantry, and a small study. Tall windows and skillful placement of its burnished antique furniture make this bright corner room look more capacious than it actually is. Granted, it is by no means small. Much of the wall space is taken up by floor-to-ceiling mobile bookshelves, the rest cerulean blue with gold molding that frame a ceiling painted as a fanciful star map. The large canopy bed is hung with sapphire curtains to match the drapery on the windows. There's a cozy reading nook in one corner beside a bay window seat and on one of the interior walls are doors to the bathroom and a walk-in closet. Before the stone fireplace is a small table flanked with armchairs, and on the mantle above it beautiful blue and white Chinese vases frame Antonio Canova's Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss. Elegant glass doors open onto a balcony with a stunning view of the glittering lake nestled in the woods of the mansion's extensive grounds. Scott looks -- no more frazzled than he did on the porch just moments ago, but here in the Professor's office, finally, he is unraveling just a little bit, pacing the receiving room, rubbing one hand absent-mindedly at the sore spot of muscle below his elbow, disciplined just enough to project, as soon as he'd arrived, a concise blur of the last few minutes -- the mansion rattling around him -- peoplearedying -- youcouldhavestoppedthis -- the door handle shaking in his hand -- taylorisdead -- please -- his hand releasing the door handle -- shouting -- rocks flying -- all condensed into one heavy dump of information and, buried underneath it, ashamed, << I need your help. >> Kurt is a step behind Scott, absently touching the hidden bandages under his shirt, feeling the tug of discomfort from teleportation with a companion underneath the bruised array of muscles and bone from the throat-turned-chest kick not too long ago. His mind is a whirl of chaotic thought as well, dwelling nearly entirely on Taylor being dead. The deep sense of shame Kurt feels tastes bitter. Scott's compressed sitrep is almost immediately answered, not with words but the subtle ineffable sense of Charles's telepathic reach expanding rapidly out over the mansion and its grounds. An instant later, the more definite, more familiar, more deliberate warmth of his presence blooms in the receiving room. << I will be out in a moment, >> he promises Scott and Kurt, his mental voice calm and unruffled and layered with a wordless question -- to each of them separately -- as to how badly they are hurt. << I've advised Hank to be ready for injuries. (Or an invasion...) >> The door to the opulent bathroom opens and out rolls Charles in one of his more comfortable powerchairs, swathed in a burgundy dressing gown, unwinding a towel from around his head despite the complete absence of hair underneath it (he offers no explanation for this). "The students who left for Riverdale -- how precisely do you know their location? Cerebro should be able to track their phones..." His lips compress. "...if they were kind enough to bring their phones, this time." Scott breathes out once, hard, at the familiar spread of psionic warmth over him, flexes his finger on his arm. << It's not serious, >> is about his own injury -- the rest of the situation is still damnably, frustratingly impossible to gauge. << It's not an invasion, they live here, >> might be needlessly pedantic but he fixates on it for a moment too long, << they're in our care (my care.) >> He can't give Charles a location, only the single reference point that they ended up further away from the shooting than the first time Sriyani opened the door. "Half of the kids have been glued to their phones all night watching the news, so I hope so. Guess we better hope nobody blows out the network again." This is with a sudden, quick press of his lips -- "I don't know what to do about -- the other kids, either, they're --" he can't -- and, probably, doesn't need to -- explain this. Kurt takes a breath. And then another. There’s something about being back hee that makes him feel 19 again, all hopeless jokes and overwhelmed at being given a second chance. “They are angry, rightfully so. << I should have done more >>. And the ones who stayed are, I suppose, angrier.” It makes sense to Kurt, somehow. The rocks being thrown, the heated words, it feels justified because precious life has been lost. The fact that he himself could never conceive of throwing a rock at the school is… different. << No because you have to be a good little mutant when you look like this >>. “I think they left with their phones.” It feels like a piece of lame information. "-- on a rampage?" Charles supplies helpfully. This comes with a gentle reassurance that he does not think the students still at the school are in so very much danger. "There is something odd going on, but they haven't attacked anyone other than you two, and that might have been circumstantial." His eyes linger on Kurt briefly, but his expression is opaque. "I will advise the staff to stay in their room, unless they have the relevant training to de-escalate any potential violence, as I mean to do. But even if I can't I had rather the children take their anger out on the windows here than somewhere they're liable to come to harm, speaking of which..." He presses two fingers to his temple, and a moment later nods. "Cerebro will send you coordinates. I've a suspicion they will not be keen on returning with you at once, but use your best judgment. Scott doubts the Professor's reassurance just a little bit -- there is a knot of tension and anxiety in his throat that the students down on the lawn will hurt each other in misfires or accidents, that this school with its hundreds of almost definitionally volatile children is only one mishap from disaster and << this is what the rules are there for, >> is clawing at the raw edges of his well-ordered mind, with a bitter bite of regret that he is somehow responsible for this, << circumstantial? >> dismissed almost out of hand, and he doesn't know if this is because he didn't send the X-Men into Freaktown to -- what? -- or because he let these students' protest get out of hand when Freaktown itself should have reminded him, << (this is what the rules are there for.) >> He nods just once -- "Thank you, sir," is a little automatic; behind his glasses he closes his eyes. << Do you still trust my judgment? >> he is asking -- he has no answer to this himself, but the question is characteristically matter-of-fact. What little Scott let himself unravel, here in Charles's chambers, is quietly respooling again. “I wouldn’t say attacked us,” Kurt trails off, a tad uneasy. “They are scared und angry. They see us as adults who failed them, failed Freaktown.” He takes a deep breath, ignoring the twinge of discomfort— from guilt or the healing chest battering, he couldn’t say. “They are not wrong,” he finishes quietly, his accent becoming thicker. And yet, in his mind, he does seem to hold Scott or the professor accountable. Just himself. “I know there are no easy answers. But we have to do something.” Even if it was too late. Just something. He feels a desperation he hasn’t felt since he was a teenager, before he was Nightcrawler and was simply Kurt. "I am keeping an eye on them." Charles glances at one of his tall windows, little though he can see the rioting students from this angle. "If they start hurling stones at each other or hunting down unpopular teachers, I will intervene. But quelling them by force at this juncture may well escalate matters, which I had rather avoid if at all possible." He laces his fingers together tightly, the only outwardly indication he is not as calm as he appears. << I trust your judgment, >> is to Scott alone, attended by the wordless steadying weight of that trust. "I do not think you could have predicted this, nor do I think it would have been helpful to forbid the protest to begin with. The spirit of their demands is just, even if the particulars are impractical, and there will be time later to discuss appropriate ways of expressing their anger." Here his pale blue eyes cut aside to Kurt, though there's no censure in them or in his voice when he continues. "I've only Scott's perspective, but it certainly looked very much like Nessie stabbed him. Fear and anger do not justify such behavior, however understandable under the circumstances, and I'll thank you not to dismiss Scott's safety or insult the students' agency by suggesting otherwise." He draws a deep breath, his psionic aura blooming warmer again when he lets it back out. "Especially as you'll need to respect that agency in order to help them. If they refuse to come with you but seem otherwise amenable, I advise you to work with them. Guide them away from danger if possible and defend them from it if not." His jaw stiffens with the usually invisible effort of containing emotion. "But however you do it, please bring them home safe." "I think it was an accident," Scott says, in quiet defense of either Nessie or Kurt, but then he is drawing himself up, pulling his phone out of a pocket to see if he has been sent coordinates yet. The question of the rioting students he is glad to leave in Charles's hopefully more capable hands. << Lima Charlie, >> gets translated aloud to, "Yes, sir." Then, with a firm clap to Kurt's shoulder, "Come on, Nightcrawler, let's go find our kids." | |
