5900/Astral Flux: Postlude

Astral Flux: Postlude
Date of Scene:	02 December 2018
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Phoenix, Doctor Strange, Shadow King
Tinyplot:	Astral Flux

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Phoenix has posed:
Now that the infinity stone supposedly has been wrested away from the Shadow King, Jean feels confident enough to journey into the Astral Plane to survey the damage and devise a plan to work on a healing process. Her astral form surveys the nightmarish corruption of the place, smiling as she feels the detachment of the corrupting element, when all of a sudden she senses a familiar presence. There was someone else here, familiar, and yet, something seemed amisss. As she navigates to his position, she projects remotely to him, <<Strange...? Are you scaping the Astral Plane to survey damages? Or do you have a different mission?>>

Doctor Strange has posed:
    Strange's mind becomes much more aware of a new voice and he snaps to attention. Floating in the endless horrors of the astral plane, Doctor Strange had come to terms with his untimely demise, but this new voice, is something that stirs him. He calls out with a quiver in his voice. "Who's that?! Where are you!? Where am I?" He shouts, sounding hysterical in fear and weary from insanity.

Phoenix has posed:
<<It's Jean, Jean Grey, we worked together in this battle...>> Jean answers, wondering why the lack of recognition was in Strange's voice. But without the Shadow King to impede the rules of the machinations of the Astral Plane, she easily navigates towards him, until her ghostly astral form appears before him. Glowing in a blue light. "How do you not know where you are...?" She asks, grave concern in her voice, before offering, "this is the Astral Plane, you did project yourself here intentionally, did you not?"

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "Jean Grey?!" Stephen asks, tumbling through the air as he tries to find where the voice is coming from. The former future wizard is doing his best to find the source of the woman's voice. "Who are you Jean Grey? Why are you here? How did you end up in Hell?" The man asks, revealing a few things he's come to accept about his life or death.

Phoenix has posed:
"Yes, Jean Grey, don't tell me you don't remember me...?" Jean is quite dumbfonded to hear Stepehen so uncertain about her name. "Hell...? This is not Hell, this is the Astral Plane," Jean explains, coming closer to Stephen, making her astral projection shimmer to draw his attention. "Why do you think you are in Hell?" Jean wonders aloud, before tilting her head to the side, pondering the question about her identity, "do you not remember discussing how to free this plane from the influence of the Shadow King?" She knows full well just speaking the name here may draw his attention, but all the better, she suspects after all that he may have a hand in the Doctor acting so, well, Strangely.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "I only remember driving to an event, a black tie affair upstate, and then - then my car went over the side of the road and fell far. Rolling." Stephen says looking down to Jean and jolting as the woman shimmers, "I don't know about any of that... are- are you a ghost. I --- This can't be real. I simply must be in hell and am being tortured for my misdeeds." The surgeon says with a broken mind and a frown.

Phoenix has posed:
"A black tie affair upstate? That doesn't make sense..." Jean muses, now wondering if the Shadow King somehow has managed to entrap Strange in his own mind, "I am no ghost, I can assure you that much. Stephen, but, if you would allow...mind if I take a look in your mind?" She values him far too much to attempt it without consent. Then again, she's not sure how he might respond to such a request in his current state. Something surely happened to him.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "You want to what?" Stephen says, sounding flabbergasted and annoyed. "But you're not a ghost?" The wizard says with a frown, seeming to mull this over and yet he's obviously not in his right mind, maybe a little peak wouldn't be such a bad idea because he's already in such a horrible state. "I mean, you guys already put one voice in my head, what's another at this point?" He conceeds with little thought and logic.

Phoenix has posed:
"I want to look in your mind, see what was done to you..." Jean tries to explain it slowly and calmly, "you see...you are not yourself," she puts it as plainly as she can. She shakes her head at the question, "no, I am not a ghost, I can assure you that much." Funny, in here, she very much looks like a ghost. She is reminded of Laura's reaction to her astral projection, which immediately makes her realize, Strange's memories must be tempered with. Or blocked. She won't know until she ventures in his mind. "Wait...who put a voice in your head?" Jean suddenly has a very ominious feeling that perhaps the Shadow King took refuge in quite the powerful host.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "If you must, do it, I don't know what you're going to find. I'm just the idiot who drove off a cliff in a car and died." Stephen says, using the word The indicating there is a lot of hubris in his mind. He knows he messed up while on top of the world. Strange has made the biggest mistake and feels he has paid the ultimate price. "Satan, or some shithead demon or whatever it is. I don't know! I was a doctor, not a priest."

Phoenix has posed:
"I want you to relax...and look at me...I am here to help you, Stephen, I am a friend," Jean whispers, before her voice shifts into his mind <<let us have a look...>> and with that she dives directly into his mind, scanning for a source of disconnect from his memories. Was something blocked? Was something erased? Is he under some kind of mind control? Worse...will she have to fight the Shadow King to relase him? Telepathy is dangerous stuff.

Shadow King has posed:
    A splinter of pure hatred and viciousness lives in there. It surfaces like a sudden flex of monster from deep water, to sink teeth into the brush of Jean as she touches Stephen's mind. It's a shard of something, not a full awareness: a fractured nasty manifestation of spite and greed.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    Strange's mind is completely reset back to the fateful night his car sailed over the side of the cliff and into that ravine. He remembers nothing of how he got here, nothing of his life as the sorcerer supreme, nothing of the time-talisman wrapped around his neck. His familiar cloak has vanished when it had the chance, but where it has gone is just as much a mystery as Stephen himself. Then there's that flair of the 'demon' he mentioned earlier. "How could you help me if I'm already dead?"

Phoenix has posed:
<<You are not dead.>> Jean asserts quite sharply, meaning to make it quite clear she doesn't believe for a second that Stephen is dead. But she does add, right after, <<you are, however, not quite yourself. You are lost in your own mind...>> and as Jean makes her professional assessment, she goes about a deep dive into Strange's mind, looking for severed, hidden or otherwise locked memories. Wondering if they are still there at all.

Shadow King has posed:
    The dark flake of the Shadow King attached to Stephen feels locked away. Behind a membrane of something. The angry fanged thing drops away after it bit, only to circle like a caged, angry thing. It does want out, but how much can it bite from where it is? Perhaps more than it should be able to.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "I- I'm not dead. Then where am I?" Stephen asks looking aroud and not helping the situation. He frowns as he feels that presence once more deeper in his head, a much more potent presence than Jean's telepathy and scrying. "How am I lost in my own mind?" Stephen asks with a sour face towards the ghastly appearance of Jean.

Phoenix has posed:
<<Hello...>> Jean says somewhat sinisterly, which likely doesn't do much to calm Strange in how he may perceive her at the moment. The Phoenix did not like when the Shadow King demanded she kneels, and while Jean is unaware that this is what drives her, she destroys that flake of the Shadow King and enjoys it. Something that is distinctly unlike her, and yet, she doesn't even realize it. <<You've had a parasite inside you, Stephen, I removed it...but it remains to be seen, how we bring you back together. Do you know where your body is at...?>> A strange question to be sure, but Jean intends to take him to the X-Men's lab to put him back together again.

Shadow King has posed:
    The fragment of it is torn apart by Jean's pressure, unable to defend itself, trying to grasp at Stephen's mind... but her mental fire burns too hot for it. It disappears.

    Then, around them, the 'hellscape' fluxes slightly with the loss of the fragment. And starts to brighten, to come into sync with Jean's mental stability.

Doctor Strange has posed:
    "I- no I don't know where I am. I absolutely thought I was in hell, but... it feels like a migrane but it's gone now." Stephen says, his shakey hand moving up to rub at his head and he frowns. "Where am I then if not hell?" Strange inquires, though he likely wont know anyways.

Phoenix has posed:
"You are...to put it in simple terms...in a realm of thoughts, of minds," perhaps Jean doesn't make it any simpler, but she gathered by now Strange would not know what 'astral' or 'plane' necessarily mean, or wouldn't exactly be accepting of the terms. She needed to find his lost memories and reattach them in something of a psychic surgery of sort. Question was...where are those memories hidden? She could only hope the Shadow King didn't wipe them from existence with that infinity stone. Else, she would need to rework bits from those who knew him.

Doctor Strange has posed:
I - a realm of thoughts... What are you talking about?" Strange says with a curious look across his face takes in a deep breath as he's not sure what he can do to help anything at the moment.

Phoenix has posed:
"Let me create a haven for you..." Jean says as she fizzles out of Strange's mind, standing before him in her astral form. "Somewhere safe...guarded," and even as she speaks, a comfortable home seems to constructed itself out of thin air, "it should have all the amenities you could want," considering she had modelled it after what she's seen at Tony Stark's party, it should be a fancy enough home. "I'm setting wards for you so you will not be attacked by creatures of the Astral Plane, just know this, you can accomplish a lot here by thinking it. But not dismissively, rather, strongly believe in it. With conviction..." Jean looks a bit upset, as she admits, "I need to consult with someone on how to proceed, but I will come check on you often...others may come to visit as well. Your friends, Stephen. We'll make everything right. This is not Hell."