10137/Telekinetic Airplanes

Telekinetic Airplanes
Date of Scene:	21 November 2019
Location:	Classroom - Xavier's School
Synopsis:	Betsy works with Brad to try to help him control his telekinetics.
Cast of Characters:	Haunt, Psylocke

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Haunt has posed:
It's evening; the classrooms are deserted for the most part. However, Brad was given word to be in this particular classroom, 2C, to go over something specific to him: some telekinetic homework he'd been assigned by the headmistress.

And so it is that Brad is there, sitting in one of the chairs in the middle of the room, folding paper airplanes. He's doing it with his mind, though: no hands are used. In fact, the figure is in a dark blue hoodie, sweats, and sneakers, hood up. He's got a pile of paper to one side, and has made some interestingly mangled origami shapes so far.

What is known to the faculty about the boy? He's said that his name is Brad Sawyer. He's a runaway of some kind, found by Jay and Andrea at a homeless meal charity. His parents did stop by and approved his stay, but didn't linger long at all. Known abilities include uncontrolled telekinetics and invisibility: he's been invisible since he's arrived, but has not offered a threat to anyone other than himself. The boy is also blind. So far he has seemed to do well, making friends quickly, and engaging with resources such as the Wellness office: there's paperwork of him going there to get help. But now, he's sitting there on the chair with his floating paper.

Psylocke has posed:
At the appointed time, the door to the classroom opens to admit a Japanese woman with purple hair. She's dressed in black slacks, pumps with a short heel, and a white button up shirt. Her heels click on the floor with each step she takes. Her hair is worn down, falling to her lower back in a straight style.

"Good evening," she greets him, the smile on her face likely discernable in her tone of voice. She speaks with a posh British accent, very at odds with her appearance. Not that he can see to pick up on that.

"I'm Betsy Braddock. I was asked to meet with you and see how you are doing. Both with the exercises and in general." She doesn't move to the teacher's desk, instead moving to one of those used by the students which happens to be near his seat.

Haunt has posed:
Brad heard her first, which caused a soft wave of telekinetics to go out around the room. It's very subtle: not even a slight 'wind', but to someone else with the same power? Very apparent. It's similar to fingertips brushing over a curtain. Brad is clumsy with some areas of his power, but using it to locate Betsy is graceful.

"Brad," Brad gives, although it seems a little silly to say it, since she clearly knows who he is. "Hi. Sure. Um. Ms. Grey wanted me to work on folding paper. I'm trying to make airplanes," Brad explains. He smoothes a new piece of paper with his hands, and then curls one tip slowly over. It's difficult: he's new to this particular move.

Brad's hood doesn't cover his face, so when Betsy seats herself, she can look right on into the empty hood.

Psylocke has posed:
As she feels the psionic brush of power, Betsy arches a brow. That was particularly adept. After all, her own telekinesis is more brute force than finesse so she knows how precise that control must be.

"Very impressive, Brad," she comments as she settles into that desk by him, watching the way he is working on the paper. Then she looks to the hood, finding nothing there. Rather odd that. Slightly disconcerting, to be honest. She knew of his invisibility though so it isn't a shock but still so unusual. "Tell me a bit about yourself. Whatever you want to share. I have the information in your file but I've learned that doesn't tell about the person really."

Haunt has posed:
"Impressive? I have made some single folds, but..." Brad hedges. He hasn't made any airplanes yet, and isn't sure what she's found to be impressive.

"Do you mean, like... about this...." Brad makes the paper waggle around in the air, moving one sleeve a little to indicate it. The lack of hand on the end of the sleeve is equally disconcerting to most people. Dismemberment is an uncomfortable primal fear for many humans.

"Or more in general?" Brad asks, his tone fairly polite. This is a teacher that might know something about powers and how to use them: if ever there is a time to be attentive, curious, and polite about it all, it is right now.

Psylocke has posed:
"The sensory sweep you sent out to the room," Betsy explains, letting him in on what was impressive which is not his origami. Not that he's doing bad. In all honesty, he's doing better than she would.

"It was very delicate and precise. Something that I doubt most telekinetics could do so skillfully. Is that something you use to help with your lack of sight then?" No pulling punches. She isn't going to hedge around all the details since they are important to who he is and may be something important in helping him.

Haunt has posed:
"Sometimes the whole room flies all over the place, so, I'm glad I can impress you now," Brad gives, a smile in his voice, even if it's invisible to the eye. His emotive: his emotions come through mildly around him: his voice, his movement - that which is apparent, anyway.

"Yes, I use it to not walk into things, or to notice when something or somebody comes over. Or to catch all the snowballs in a snowball fight," Brad's grin is, again, in his voice. He enjoyed that very much.

"Otherwise, um. I'm a Sophomore, I'm sixteen. I'm a Leo. Um." Ummmm.

Psylocke has posed:
"A Leo? That tells me a lot right there," she says in a teasing tone. If one believes in such things, that's a strong sign with some very distinct personality traits. If one believed in such.

"I would like to see your powers in use. To see what level of power and control you have, outside using it as a sensory device. However, first something you should know about me. My powers are psionic in nature as well. I do have telekinesis although mine is more a blunt object than a scalpel. However, I am also a telepath. When you use your powers, I would like to ask permission to look in your mind at how your powers work? I have never met a telekinetic that used their powers to see and would very much like to experience that so I can understand it better. Would that be alright with you?"

Haunt has posed:
"I'm sure it's all good things," Brad answers earnestly when she suggests she might know a lot about him based on his star sign. He himself would be hard pressed to remember!

Brad quiets and appears to be listening: he can be excruciatingly hard to read with the invisibility. "Okay. Is it going to feel weird? I've not had anyone mind-read me before. If it's weird we can stop, right," Brad asks. He's nervous: and it shows in the room. The desks around them move just a little bit, a soft rattle to the chairs. Nothing flies around, but it is the first little burst of nervousness that is echoed around them in psychokinetic energy. It's a sort of un-aimed telekinetic release.

"What do I do?"

Psylocke has posed:
That lets her know something right there. He does have an emotional link to his powers, something that isn't fully controlled. "Of course we can stop at any time you wish. Any moral telepath will never go into someone's mind without permission. We also will not stay there if there is discomfort or it upsets the person we are touching mentally."

She considers a moment, watching the pile of clothes with interest then glancing around the room at the rattling bits of furniture. "I can do this either way. If you wish to not sense me there, you won't. If you would prefer, I will let you 'feel' my presence. That way you are aware I am there and you can tell me at any time to stop. Either verbally or just think the word and I will hear it."

Haunt has posed:
"Okay," Brad says hesitantly. "I'd rather know it." There's still some tension, and it's in the air, as if the chairs were all prepared to either leap upon them or fly out of the way to escape. The feeling is, quite literally, up in the air.

Brad settles, waiting. His mind is interesting: he does have some mental 'visuals', because he was not always blind, but most of his awareness isn't wrapped up in that. It uses telekinesis to sense and map things. It isn't sonar, it is rather literally a sixth sense, that is operating in such a way closer to a sense of hearing than it is vision: information about distance, size, weight, but not color or texture. Things have a 'presence'. He's aware of the whole room, part of the exterior lawn, and some hallway, regardless of the shut door. Most of the awareness right now is on the mix of paper airplanes, the slightly moving chairs, Betsy, and himself. Brad is extremely focused on himself, in a blistering way, as if he were, in fact, hovering in the air. Not that he is.

Psylocke has posed:
"Thank you for the trust, Brad." Then she reaches out carefully, allowing for him to feel that light touch. It is almost like the brush of butterfly wings, just something that lets him know he isn't alone even as he uses his senses to feel the area. Seems they are always on to one level or another. Outwardly, there is the glowing purple form of a butterfly appearing around Betsy's eyes. It is often there when she is using her telepathy this way.

The way he senses the world is amazing. An experience like nothing she has had before. "Brad, your ability to sense everything is very advanced. But I have a question." She is speaking outloud instead of in his mind, for his comfort. "Why do you focus so much on yourself? Are you even aware you are doing so?"

Haunt has posed:
From Brad's awareness comes him sensing the butterfly, though it isn't purple to him. It's more like an intensity there in a flare, related to Betsy's head. As if energy were pooling in her face and eyes. That is how Brad senses it: no butterfly, more of a spark.

"Well, I don't have my eyes to see, so. Focus on myself?" He's bewildered a little by that, but it's calming: the furniture gets less of his stress and attention. "How do you mean? I'm not flying right now, so I'm not."

Brad deliberately exerts effort, and floats a little bit out of his chair. There's no real apparent change from what he'd been doing previously.

Psylocke has posed:
As he rises a bit from the chair, Betsy frowns slightly. "Visually speaking, you are now in the air. Mentally speaking, you are doing exactly the same thing you were a moment ago when you were seated. There is no change. You are focusing the same amount of energy on yourself at all times. An extreme amount, such as one would expect from someone purposefully using telekinesis."

Something occurs to her as she looks at the empty bundle of clothing. "I want you to try something for me, if you would? Focus your power outward. Try not to focus on you but instead on the surroundings. I want you to be less self-aware, if that makes sense."

Haunt has posed:
Brad goes back to his chair, and mentally tries to figure out what she's talking about. It creates a flurry of unsure ideas, and that he doesn't want to disappoint her. How does one think more outwardly?

Thinking through what she's asked causes another wave to go outwards, causing a few desks to move, but he clamps back down on it. Those waves, in a way, are him allowing too much telekinetic focus out. He's clenching it back, and emotion causes ripples in that control. His tension level may have something to do with it.

"Like when I'm sensing, you mean? I can do that." Brad tries to relax, and sends his awareness out as far as it can go. He has some good distance: he starts to push his exploration up through the ceiling, up through floors of the mansion above them: people in rooms, in hallways, a party in the rec room, some teens making out in the stairway...

Psylocke has posed:
"Excellent. You have quite the range and your senses are impressive, to be able to tell so much. Many telekinetics are limited by line of sight. You have conquered that due to your personal challenges." A nice way to say his blindness.

Betsy considers as his power begins to expand outward, watching him closely. Well, his clothes and his mental state since she can't see him exactly. "Brad, if you will give me permission, I want to try something. It will involve touching a part of your mind that controls your muscles. Basically, I want to help you relax. Both physically and mentally. Will you let me do that for you?"

Haunt has posed:
Brad responds by tensing up and pulling his senses back into the room. Brad's mostly concerned about himself and the room he's in locally, and he's sharp to catch onto changes to his body and his immediate area. It's a paranoia, in a way, a worry: that something will get him. Under that emotion? Layers of fear. Brad's running a lot of his powers on emotion. And that emotion smells like a copper penny, fear.

"I'm okay with that. Relaxing. Sure. Just a minute." Brad counts quietly in his head, and tries to relax his body in the chair. "Okay. I'm not good at relaxing. What are you going to do? I'm not going to pee on the floor, right."

With his agreement, though, she's moved to gently try to help, to reduce his nerves and tension, and to start to soothe the fear. A lot of the extra movement quells, and the watchful mental 'eye' around him begins to abate.

Psylocke has posed:
"No, you will not lose control of your bodily functions," Betsy says, the smile there in her voice for him to hear again. "Literally, I just intend to help reduce your tension level. There are many things a telepath can do to help with a variety of situations. What I am seeing is you are tense. To the extreme. It is why your telekinesis pulses sometimes when you have an emotional response. It's like a rubber band stretched out and there is only so much give. When it is exceeded, the TK will send out those waves that are no longer being controlled."

She tilts her head slightly as she feels that fear. "I'm going to stimulate that area to tell your body to relax. I will also touch on your emotions slightly. Again, I will stop at any time you wish me to. I will not be causing you any sort of emotional fits, I just want to see if what I'm sensing may have something to do with that tight sense of power around you." If he is okay with it, she will try to help lessen that fear. Instead it is a feeling of being safe.

Haunt has posed:
The awareness that somebody is going to be poking in his emotions frightens him, so does being told he's tense. But he swallows and tries to settle his weight better in the chair. One hand lifts back to push his hood back off his head, and then he unzips it in front. These are calming behaviors to him in a way: controlling how warm he is. Brief thoughts and pleasant memories of earlier in the day come forward: three girls took Brad to go get a haircut, they were kind to him. There's some mushy splashes of visuals from that, blurry memories of people moving: he'd used his eyes earlier.

The memories aren't a coincidence, he's pulling something relaxing up to his mind. It's a terrible choice, he was nervous and flattered and a mix of things, but he wasn't afraid, either. During all of that, Betsy does continue to chill him out, and he finally responds well to it, and starts to retract the telekinesis back. Still, he doesn't stop sensing himself.

Psylocke has posed:
As he starts to relax, he is still using his telekinesis for sensing everything around him. It is something he isn't allowing to be turned off. It could be nullified, as was the case earlier in the day when he had used the device to do so and the blurry images were there. It wasn't the same as controllin though and that was what she was focusing on, instead of the homework he had been given.

There was something here and she just knew if she worked at it, she would find it. Only, what was it? What was she trying to find? "Brad, I would like to look at your memories. You don't have to consciously think of anything at all, unless you would like to. It will feel like a ruffling sensation. Like someone playing with your hair lightly, only it's inside your head. It can be a bit strange but I want you to know what I'm doing so you aren't surprised by it. If you are alright with that, I want to look back at some things with your powers, see if I can understand them more fully."

Haunt has posed:
"I guess." Things are embarrassing in his memories! He does well at not immediately thinking of his most embarrassing moments, at least. But he does stay calm: he even decides to lean forward on the school desk, crossing his arms under his head, to rest there. He is relaxed, though, and not resisting.

The first memories of powers are related to objects flying around, emotional outbursts from him. It centers around his baby sister's birth, and the stress on the family. Everything started with that stress, and the telekinesis. Brad first started moving objects around: lots of floating. That's where all of his power use began. He began to clamp down on the telekinesis, to stop the poltergeist effects. The memories were still lacking in any of the telekinetic senses, though: they feel similar to most young telekinetics: seeing things, moving them within sightline.

The memories get severe quickly. It all stemmed from trying to fly. That's when the blackness came in, the loss of sight. Totally in the dark, nightmares of panic of blindness. From that, began the emerging 'pings' of things around him, trying to parry the darkness, but instead, there was only darkness, from then onward. The tight hold over his body from trying to fly twisted, instead, into turning himself invisible instead, and his sight went with it.

Psylocke has posed:
The memories are difficult of course. They always are for the start of powers. The telekinesis actually is familiar, in a way, for her. Her own powers didn't start until a bit later in life but she had locked it away much as he had. Yet his sense of control over it seemed stronger than her own had been. Perhaps something about his personality.

The attempt to fly turned into something frightening, horrifying, his body going invisible and taking his sight with it. That tight sense of self, that need for control to make up for the lack of from his loss of sight. Yet, his psionics were at play in a way that he might not be aware of.

"Brad, if you are willing to work with me for a bit, there is something I see here that may explain your invisibility. I don't want to give you false hope but I think there is a way for it to be turned off. It is going to take some work on your part, likely it won't be an immediate thing. If you are willing..."

And with that, their journey together begins as hours pass while trying to unravel this mystery, to help him to find a way to be less constantly telekinetically aware and perhaps find himself once more in the process.