Logs:What Is It With You and Curses?

What Is It With You and Curses?
Dramatis Personae Jax, Scott
In Absentia	2024-06-06 "Y'had to say something."
Location <WV> Bramwell, WV (Pop. 270)
This isn't the Danger Room, though one would be forgiven for assuming they'd stepped into some kind of illusion. Initial reports weren't helpful at all in preparation -- just Some Amount of rumours that a small Appalachian town had simply vanished from existence, soon giving way to predictable "who'd notice/who'll care" memes. Buried somewhere in the joking, speculation from some teenagers in the area that That Weird Kid just recently back from mutie jail had something to do with it -- brainwashing? Illusions? They've eaten all their friends and family? The internet rumour mill disagrees but is all Very Clear that weirdness is going on and as such, eventually all the internet gossip has risen to the level of X-Man concerns. Concerns about what, it's not entirely clear at first blush. The town is definitely still here, that much is clear from a sky-high view, but all the roads in are no longer functioning correctly so it's an easy enough mistake to make. Though approaching on ground level just blips cars and foot traffic straight past this little town, the Blackbird can find it easily enough -- but what it's found is anyone's question. The town doesn't look much like any sane architect designed it -- doesn't look, in fact, like anything sane has happened here for some time. Over here a street is made of what seems to be a literal, if oddly tangible, rainbow; it has a cross street of a flowing river of chocolate and the next block over is being actively constructed and reconstructed by numerous extremely large ants building the street and its surrounding buildings entirely out of legos. Some of the people here are still people, although many are dressed like they came from the past, or the far future, or another world entirely. Some of the people here are talking pigs, or dryads, or aliens (the Marvin the Martian kind, rather than ravenous bugs.) Overhead there's an oddly low, oddly cotton-candy-looking cover of clouds moving swiftly in. The rain that's starting to fall is composed of equal parts edible glitter and lemonade, which, at the very least, does not seem to be causing any immediate harm to the kind of surreal plantlife. Unfortunately, it is summoning some extremely large, extremely cartoon-looking, but very tangible butterflies who are busily making an extreme nuisance of themselves attempting to land on every available person and surface to enjoy this sugar-water feast. Cyclops is kind of at odds with these Technicolor surroundings -- perhaps his futuristic X-Suit and eerily-glowing visor would fit into this patchwork of weird if he were not occupying them with such an aggressive lack of whimsy. His head is tilted up at the cotton-candy clouds, though fortunately the visor will keep him from getting either lemon juice or glitter in his eyes, as he strides back toward the intersection of Bloch and Main Choc and Rainbow to report, "Marvin over there --" it's anybody's guess whether 'Marvin' is the Martian's actual name -- "couldn't talk long, he's got an exam in ten minutes and he's been skipping class all year, but he says if we take a left onto the chocolate and head south, kid we're looking for is in the pyramid." He delivers this very straightforwardly, but amusement creeps into his voice as he tilts his head at the chocolate river -- "Come with me and we'll be in a world of pure imagination." Jax should fit in here, really, brightly-colorful as he always is, but aside from a faintly shifting colorful glow around him he's looking oddly devoid of illusion, for the moment. The smiling sun beadazzled into his jacket isn't glowing, isn't looking around; the dragonfly embroidered on his eyepatch is sitting almost disconcertingly still. He has been engaged in conversation with a cheerful purple sheep while his team leader has been interrogating aliens, but his conversation has been interrupted by a half-dozen giant butterflies heckling his fleecey quarry as they jockey to slurp up the lemonade soaking into its wool. There's an iridescent dome that's grown over him like an umbrella, which spreads to cover Scott as well when he nears, though possibly trying not to get sticky and glittery here is a bit of a lost cause. "See, the problem, sir, --" Jax's overhead umbrella is very shortlived; it disappears so that he can instead prioritize making them a bridge over the river chocolate street, "-- is that's where I always live. If I ain't careful here you gonna mistake an illusion for reality or vice versa and be drowning in chocohhhh gosh." The sudden skew of his words comes as some kind of sea-monster is sprouting from the chocolate river as they approach. One long tentacle has whipped out -- it's hard to tell whether it's made from chocolate or just covered in chocolate but either way it's certainly startled him where it lashes at his leg and tries to drag him in toward where several other writhing gooey arms are lashing in the... roadway. Scott was nodding along as he started after Jax toward the bridge, but at this tentacular interruption this is cut off with, "Oh man --" his first move is an instinctive clutch for his fellow X-man's arm, boots gritting against the strange, gauzy surface of the rainbow. The crimson blare of his optic blast is rather less forceful than an unfamiliar tentacle might normally warrant, meant to disorient more than harm -- it's bright and flashy at the mass of wriggling arms and only a little punchy. They let out an oddly piglike squeal, flailing in the directionless manner of ribbons attached to a fan. "Sorry!" Scott says, before he blasts Chocthulhu again; this one sends it back below. As Scott approaches more warily he shoots Jax a slightly bemused grin. "You had to say something. Think you could rustle up some handrails?" "Wooah thanks." Jax's eye has gone wide, and he is looking down to where there's a drippy ring of chocolate now wrapped around the cuff of his pants. The iridescent bridge sprouts some iridescent sides, more waist-high guard-wall than handrails where they blossom protectively alongside. "You got it, and --" The zipping motion he makes across his mouth puts a zipper there, teeth the same metallic blue shade as the bluest part of his hair. Even with the rails he's looking kiiind of more cautiously down at the bridge as he steps on; below the translucent footing there are some very large eyes blinking up from the cocoa. The cotton-candy clouds overhead are beginning to rumble ominiously, and Jax almost unzips his mouth as he looks up toward them but, on a reconsideration, says Nothing. As he follows Jax over the bridge, Scott is looking cautiously around at the turbulent river below, eyebrows scrunched low over his visor. He doesn't look skyward at the rumble of thunder, though he clearly notices it -- "Maybe I should've asked Marvin if he saw the forecast this morning," he says, putting his hands on his hips. "Do you see a pyramid? Egyptian or Mayan -- 'scuse me," he says politely to a young woman working in her garden, "is there a --" Scott cuts himself off even as soon as she lifts her head at him -- there is something in the shiny-porcelain effect of her skin, her eyes pale and sunken and bloodshot like they belong to a much older woman, the terror in her expression, that gives him pause even before she screams, scrambling on her hands away from them, though the lemonade-soaked garden seems to be pulling her back in, mud clinging to her feet and the hem of her prairie dress with a too-loud sucking sound. Scott reaches out for her, then pulls his hand back rapidly when -- with no explanation-- she is just working in the garden again, inspecting a tomato plant. Spidery tendrils of lightning have begun to fork down, so bright white that they render the Lego buildings and rainbow road in greyscale -- Scott glances back at Jax, crimson visor temporarily just black before he reopens his eyes, takes a deep breath, and just sets off down the street again. While Scott is questioning the woman, Jax is climbing up into the air -- or at least it halfway looks it from some angles, the precarious ledges he's using as a sort of staircase only barely visible where they hang. "Wait, Egyptian or Mayan?" He's looking one way over the nearby houses and then the other, and then -- carefully -- backing down partially the way he came. He almost loses his footing at that flash of lightning but then just drops (safely) the rest of the way back to the ground. "Doesn't matter, both of them are that way," he's nodding down the street as he tags along at Scott's side, "but the Mayan one looks like it's got some kind of, uh. Big -- chompy -- let's just hope Egyptian." Behind them the tomato plants the woman has been tending are growing bigger, huge red balls that have their own weirdly large mouths with weirdly rubbery tongues flopping out of them as they bounce-roll-skitter down the street towards the X-Men. Jax twitches -- there's a flash and then, several blistered tomatoes dormant in the street. "... hungry?" "There's two?" says Scott, but upon second thought -- "'Course there's two." His gaze is very steady on the horizon -- it drops down only at the ground-level flash, and Scott grimaces in sympathy (for the tomatoes, maybe?), then laughs -- "Got food at home." He keeps walking down the rainbow, even as it begins to slope upward in a way it definitely wasn't doing before -- after a moment, fortunately, it is sloping back downward, the entire street slo-o-o-owly undulating. "Think this has been happening a lot to these folks?" he says, frowning sideways at a young man operating a remote control parasaurolophus in his front yard, then shaking his head. "School's so damn surreal already, is all. Oh --" his voice brightens as a pyramid looms ahead. It's much too massive to only now be coming in view, and yet. The thunderclouds have formed a vortex around its capstone. "Yeah, I'm thinking Egyptian. Best luck we've had since we got here." "I hope not too often, I think it should be illegal to make someone seasick this far inland." Jax is trying to look somewhat upward rather than at the undulating street, but immediately regrets this when he does, in fact, get a splash of lemonade in his eye. "School could always get a bit surrealer, though, and if they ain't sure how to stop this here -- at any rate sprouting giant pyramids an' all could help our space issues some." He's walking just a little faster, now, with the end(?) in sight. This time, though, more cautious than before, he stops before reaching the entrance to the pyramid. There's another brilliant flash of lightning -- in its wake, the pyramid entrance seems more cavernous than before. The huge stones are shaking, rumbling -- a moment later there is an immense bandage-wrapped hand stretching out of the darkness. Then another, a truly immense head following with a rumbling grooooan. Jax puts a shield up, quick, in front of the giant mummy's first swipe towards them, but despite this new threat he's shooting a quick slant of a grin to Scott. "Y'had to say something."