7371/Mysterious Man

Mysterious Man
Date of Scene:	30 April 2019
Location:	Xavier's School, Westchester, New York
Synopsis:	The X-MEN have a meeting with the man declaring himself to be Rogue's father. He lays out all the information about where he's been for the past 14 years.
Cast of Characters:	Rogue, Shadowcat, Gambit, Polaris, Cyclops, Psylocke

---

Rogue has posed:
The School had been attacked by mysterious men. One of them had been able to convince members of the faculty who were on site to experience the reality of being trapped inside of a mental institution. As it turned out, this appears to have been a distraction however, as the mysterious individuals had been actually seemingly here to kidnap members of the team, specifically three of the women. Rogue, Kitty and a third--though the identity of who the third they were after wasn't ever revealed as things were broken up prior to them identifying her.

It had been broken up by a member of their own team. One of the men assisting the 'Doctor' who seemingly orchestrated it all, had attacked the Doctor and subsequently brought the false reality down, and brought the X-Men back to the true reality. This allowed them to fight back and caused the mysterious invaders to flee into their strange energy portals.

This singular person who stopped it all from happening, then revealed himself to be Owen D'Ancanto, a man in his middle years, gray hair in his beard and on his head.

This is where everyone is now, having brought the man inside the school to the Staff Meeting hall. He's to answer questions on all of this, and he knows it. Thue doors to the meeting hall are shut to keep students out, but faculty and X-Men are here.

The man, Owen, stands near to the side of the meeting table. He's removed the black robe he'd had on and drapes it over the back of a chair, he looks to everyone and places his hands over top of that chair. His eyes settle on Rogue, who stands on the other side of the table and crosses her arms over her stomach.

"Lay it on me." He says then. "Whatever questions you need to get off your chests about..." His hand raises and he motions out of the meeting hall. "All of that that just went down."

Shadowcat has posed:
Kitty Pryde stands over near Rogue and if her posture seems protective of her former roomie, that's definitely the emotion driving her right now. She glances to Rogue, trying to gauge her reaction. A small look to Lockheed and a flit of her eyes, and the purple dragon flaps his wings a few times, moving over to land on Rogue's shoulder and give her a nuzzle of emotional support.

Extra-terrestrial dragons being immune to Rogue's absorption power, apparently.

Kitty looks back to Owen. Her lips press in a line. "Let's start with who those people are? Why did they want to abduct the three of us, and who was the third? And how did you come to be with them?" Kitty asks him. She leaves the father stuff. That topic is Rogue's to handle as far as Kitty is concerned.

Gambit has posed:
Remy LeBeau had actully missed the fun by about five minutes. He'd gotten the alert but had been out on his bike when the actual attack had gone down. So at the moment he simply stands in the doorway, shuffling a deck of cards from one hand to the other. He'd missed the fight, but if a long lost member of Rogue's family was going to suddenly appear, he certainly wasn't going to miss that.

Polaris has posed:
Lorna had dealt with her fair share of family drama in her past, it had almost broken her. She empathized with Rogue's own issues heavily, at least as far as she had been aware when it came to Mystique and //those// issues. This whole attempted kidnapping and breaking into the Mansion had set the green haired mutant on edge as her protective streak burned down her throat and straightened her spine.

For once the Princess of Genosha was content to stand in the back, arms folded and leaning against the far wall. A look of intensity remained, as did the branching out of her powers, clearly ready and waiting for another attack to occur at any moment. She had missed the previous fight, but she'd be damned if she'd miss a second one that threatened those she called her chosen family.

Cyclops has posed:
    Scott has found his way back into the meeting room, his red sunglasses on and the jacket he likes so much on, a New York Ranger's sweater, sporting his team's colors and fashion, the x-leader stands in a corner of the room, closer to Owen than his team. A tactical advantage to be behind the possible threat should anything go down.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue was aware of Lockheed taking landing on her shoulder and she appreciated the show of support from the purple dragon, but she kept her eyes locked on this man. She does shift her weight from one foot to the other, but thats about it.

Kitty fires off a series of good questions and the reaction that she gets out of the man across the table from her is a light nod and his attention going to her. "I don't know who the third person was, if I were to wager, I'd say it was going to be a completely random person from your..." He pauses and looks around. "What is this, a school?" He asks, peering his eyes around. "This looks like golf resort..." That last part is muttered and he shoots his eyes back to the others.

"Anyway, yeah, look." He clears his throat then sharply. "These 'people' are the worst kinda people, man. You gotta understand this, they're loyalists to a single man who's in possessions of powers that I... I can't even began to wrap my head around. He, and they, go by a lot of different names. They come and go, and come and go, bouncing back and forth between here--our world--and theirs... 'Otherland'." He says that last part after a short pause and as though the name itself just struck him. "Its one word for it anyway, there's lots more..."

The last question though first gets Owen to look to Kitty, then to the others. "I've been tailing them for 14 years. Since they took my wife..." Now his eyes go to Rogue. "Took..." He raises his hand up and motions over to Marie. "Took her mother." And he clears his throat again, he's uncomfortable, a bit fidgety, this feels as though its awkward for him all around.

Shadowcat has posed:
Kitty Pryde glances over to Rogue a few times as she listens to Owen's answers, just gauging how Anna-Marie is taking hearing this. "Do they often target mutants, or those with powers?" Kitty asks him. "Were the two of us also random? Or were we mentioned as targets for them?" Kitty asks. "Do you know what they do with those they take?" she adds, voice going softer as it could end up applying to Rogue's mother. Kitty reaches over, resting a hand lightly on Rogue's back.

Gambit has posed:
Remy LeBeau shuffles in silence a few more moments then the deck vanishes somewhere through some measure of almost subconscious slight of hand. He moves a bit closer to Rogue herself, on the opposite side of Kitty, brushing her fingertips with his own. While he's not normally one to shy away from PDA, he rarely does anything of the like during "X-Men" time. Still he wants her to know, if only with a touch, that he is here for her.

Polaris has posed:
Green eyes narrowed as Lorna listened and kept her position, she wanted to go to Rogue, but as she listened and watched Remy stepped forward instead to fill that spot beside her friend as Kitty continued to speak. She wasn't entirely sure what to think of the scant pieces of information. Of tragedy past and present. Her arms remained crossed as she swept her focus instead around the room and exhaled a breath.

Finally at a break in the conversation, she spoke from her spot by the back wall. "Who is this man you mentioned? Does he have a name?" She interjected, and then fell silent. Throwing out a million questions couldn't possibly help, but she wanted to know.

And it wasn't like she could feel more useless than she did just standing there.

Cyclops has posed:
    Could totally be more useless Lorna. You could be Scott. The man who can't even see Owen properly. The man who stands on the other side of the same wall as Lorna with his arms also crossed like some mutant bouncer. The x-bouncer however remains silent and standing in his part of the room. Not interjecting or putting words out into the ether. Instead he stays quiet and simply observes. Observes his team and the man who claims to be Rogue's father.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue is  certainly appreciative of her friends all being here for her, but all of this is just a bit too overwhelming so she can't really take her eyes off of this man for very long. She does spare a glance over to Gambit when he steps over to her, but she puts her eyes back onto the man when he mentions her mother.

"Yeah..." Owen says this in response to Kitty's next questions, his right hand goes up and he strokes at his beard a few times, trying to word all of this properly in his head before he lays it out there for them. He looks back up then and scans his eyes across them all once more. "They're after everyone." He says. "But, you gotta understand this isn't a... this isn't like your standard cult that hides in the Montana mountains or some remote Idaho land preserve. This, this is a cult that's leader has created his own reality." It seems to be difficult for the man to say this stuff, as if he knows its as ridiculous as it sounds.

"They want the men to bolster their defenses, and the women?" He shakes his head again and draws in another breath. "The women work in the center of his reality, inside a... fortress. Like out of some damn nightmare'ish children's cartoon. The kinda junk I watched when I was barely old enough to put my own pants on."

Owen's eyes now settle on Lorna, he nods his head lightly to her question. "Again, its all got... too many names. One you may have heard of though is Indrid Cold. He's been called that the most in this reality. The Mothman." Now, Owen straightens up and he folds his arms together over that black shirt he's wearing, mirroring Rogue's own stance directly on the other side of the table from her. She hasn't said a word though.

"Though, most people have those legends all wrong... But I guess thats how legends work, right?" He sort've grumbles that last part out.

Shadowcat has posed:
Kitty Pryde pulls out her phone and connects securely to the base computer to begin searching for references on the entity that Owen is speaking of. "And how did you come to be part of their kidnapping party?" she asks him. Kitty doesn't add more questions, but glances around at the rest, giving them plenty of room to jump in if they have something to ask.

She glances down at her phone as she starts pulling up information, just skimming it for now to see if it generates any new questions she might have. She'll have to go over it in detail later.

Polaris has posed:
If it was disbelief the man, Owen, whoever he was, expected to see Lorna wasn't giving it to him. She only nodded once, her head tilted to the side as she considered. Of course there were other realities and portals and other such things. The fact that one of the more obscure legends about a giant moth-man hybrid turned out to be a guy kidnapping people for his own ends in another reality was just added to the lexicon of crazy that was her life and life in general at the X-Mansion.

She almost snorted a laugh at how easily she came to accept it all as fact.

"His own reality.. okay." Vaguely she wondered if she should call her sister and ask Wanda about what she thought of all of this. But shoved the thought aside.

Psylocke has posed:
It's about this point the door opens and in steps the Physical Education teacher. She's dressed in the appropriate attire which consists of a track suit with a tank top. She even has a whistle hanging on a chain around her neck. Her purple hair is up in a pony tail out of the way.

Betsy makes it three steps in, her attention having gone to a table off to the side where there is a folder sitting. She'd left it here earlier after a teacher/parent conference. Realizing she isn't alone, she freezes and looks at all those present as she starts back-stepping toward the door. "My apologies. I didn't realize the room was in use."

Cyclops has posed:
    The silent ... bouncer. That's a thing, right? Scott takes this all in stride. Owens wild words, which are wild, but Scott has a secret blackbird underneath their feet that he flies on missions to go save teenagers. Life as an X-man is already strange, why not add some alternate dimensions on top. What's the worst that could happen?

    "No, nonsense, Betsy stay, we could use your help in this situation for sure." Scott says, beginning the introductions. "Owen, this is Betsy, our PE teacher. Betsy, this is Owen, Rogue's claimed father." Scott says, summarizing the whole thing briefly.

Rogue has posed:
"Fourteen years ago as of this October..." Owen says back to Kitty, his chin kind of inclined now as he's recalling the time and place that he got involved in all of this. "Baseball playoffs... Sox and Indians." He lowers his eyes and looks to Rogue then, smiles lightly at her. "You and that dog of yours... Your mother hanging laundry up on the line." His smile grows for just a second but he fades it out and looks back to his quesitoners.

"We lived in a shared community. I was a different person back then and I believed that if I raised my family in a place that was all about helping one another out, that it would make for a better life. I guess I couldn't have been more wrong in hindsight." When the door opens up then and Betsy strides in, he shifts his stare over to her for a second before back to the others. "Quite a school." He comments then under his breath just before Scott introduces them. He nods once to Betsy but looks back to Rogue and Kitty, Lorna and Gambit... he gives Gambit a momentary 'once over' like a father might, seeing the guy standing as close to Rogue as he is.

"Anyway... The Commune we lived on believed that through Native American rituals we could yield a better... existence, for all of us. Better crop yields, better rain patterns, weather, health in-general, you name it. So." He draws out a heavy breath. "One day, Priscilla--" He pauses, motions to Marie. "Her mother--Comes home saying that she met a Shaman in town, that he'd agreed to come and help us with a prayer that would ensure results."

Owen openly grumbles then, regret thick on his person. "I never should've gotten her involved. I loved her... love her, more than anything. At least, until--" He looks to Rogue again but cuts himself off.

His hand taps on the back of the chair he draped the robe over. "This man. Cold. Showed up... he ran his ceremony, he opened his portals, and he took our people. Marie's mother--My wife--was his number one goal though. Apparently he'd gotten quite fond of her when they met in town. Not that I could blame him for that much, I guess.."

Shadowcat has posed:
Kitty Pryde glances over to Lorna at her doubting comment about other realities. "It's a thing," Kitty says with a rueful sigh, her thoughts drifting to Limbo and the feeling of being connected to the place. A second sigh, because one is really not enough.

Psylocke's entrance gets a nod and a pleased smile from Kitty, as if a telepath's presence is just what the moment could use. Kitty looks back over to Owen, listening as he tells the tale of his wife's abduction. "And did you go through with them as well, then?" she asks Owen, her arms crossing across her torso as she listens. Lockheed, meanwhile, gives Rogue another gentle nuzzle as her mother is mentioned.

Gambit has posed:
Remy LeBeau is for the most part remaining silent through all this. However that look the man gets him sort of annoys the Cajun, as if he had the right to judge any of them, Rogue especially. "So yah wife took off wit' anot'er man an' yah decided ta abandon yah daughter. We got fat'er of de year material 'ere." His tone sarcastic and not a little bit angry at the thought.

Cyclops has posed:
    Scott was eyeing Owen suspiciously as he had the whole time. Then he shakes his head at the man's reaction to Betsy and sighs himself. "Please don't flirt with our faculty." The leader says softly to Owen before Scott looks back towards Remy.

    "We don't have the full story, lets reserve our own judgement Remy. None of us are in a place to dispute a father trying to help."

Polaris has posed:
Finally, Lorna stepped forward, pushing off the wall in the break of the story as Psylocke was introduced and she glanced toward Kitty. "Not saying it's not." She shot Remy a look as she bit back a snort at the 'father of the year comment'. Her father had abandoned her and her mother for less, on the vague basis of hoping it was for the best. Scott's comment earned a twitch of her lips. But at least she didn't add to it as she came up closer and looked to Rogue.

She kept here voice low and gentle. "If what he says is true, then if you want to act... If you want to do something about this. I'm here for you. Another reality, dimension, whatever. Because regardless, if he's telling the truth or not. It sounds like there are people that need a hand."

Psylocke has posed:
At the introduction by Scott, Betsy gives a brief nod to the man called Owen. The word claimed was noted and she arches a brow over at Scott. It is backed up with a telepathic question for him alone. <<Claimed father? What did I walk into? Scott, do you want him scanned?>>

She doesn't look away from those conversing, letting it seem like she is trying to play catchup. It's true. She is since she came into the conversation in the middle. But she also doesn't want to give away what she might be doing in a moment.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue reaches her left hand up to pet the side of Lockheed's face as the dragon on her shoulder shows her that well received affection. But she keeps her gaze on that of her 'father' across the table, she does glance over to Gambit when he says that response which then makes her eyebrows momentarily raise before she looks back over at the man to see his response to that nugget.

Owen's response is to draws in a breath and lightly release it. "I decided, to stop the men who were trying to drag my wife into a glowing doorway while she was kicking and screaming." He responds. "And it got me a knife in my back, as well as a free ride through that doorway myself. Where I was left for dead on the other side... Thankfully though, there are people in his realm who are..." He pauses and regards Scott for a second, but doesn't respond to the flirting with the staff quip.

He looks back to Gambit, Rogue and Kitty specifically. "There are people who're fighting back. They're small in numbers, poorly equipped, but they're doing their best to fight the power inside of Cold's reality. Rebels, if you will. They took me in and patched me up. This, is why I was here today. I'm with them now. Trying to put an end to all of this... Trying to get." Once more he motions across the table to Rogue. "Trying to get her mother back. Along with everyone else that Cold and his people have taken."

Cyclops has posed:
    <<Seems like it might be better to be safe than sorry.>> Scott sends a mental reply to Betsy with a glance towards Rogue before he asks her, "What are you thinking about all of this?" Scott asks, wanting to know what the main subject feels about the newest developments. She's been awfully quiet and not very Rogue like. It has the cyclops a bit worried.

Shadowcat has posed:
Kitty hrms quietly to herself as she hears of the knife that Owen claims to have taken trying to save his wife. She looks around the room as if to glimpse each person's face. When she gets to Betsy, Kitty's expression turns more meaningful. It's pretty clear there's something Kitty is trying to impart.

At which point any mental defenses Kitty has learned from Jean or the Professor are dropped and she thinks, <Here is what happened...> Assuming there is any kind of reaction from Betsy that she's hearing her, Kitty's mind plays out the events that just unfolded in the last hour.

A number of the X-men meeting to plan the summer schedule. Suddenly finding themselves in other bodies in an asylum. A doctor who looked like Xavier, leading them outside. Kitty and Rogue being taken to white vans to be 'transferred'. Then suddenly one of the orderlies jabbing the 'Doctor' with a syringe, and the fake reality crumbling. Revealing the vans were instead some sort of dimensional portal. And the orderly who had saved them, claiming he is Rogue's father Owen, the man before them.

It all passes in the span of a second. Kitty looks back to Owen then and asks, "So were you stuck in that dimension since then? Or have you been able to move back and forth? If so, how is it done?"

Psylocke has posed:
At the look from Kitty, Betsy reaches out just as the other woman opens her mind. She is able to watch the entire goings-on in those few moments. Then she gives a terse nod as she moves to the side counter to pick up the folder she had come in for.

This allows her to have her back to Owen and the others. And a moment for the butterfly aura to appear around her eyes, without the stranger seeing it. She reaches out for his mind cautiously, checking for traps or blocks. When she is sure she can, she continues inward to find more information. To confirm what he is saying.

It doesn't take long and she quickly sends the telepathic information to all the people she knows who are present. <<He's telling the truth. Or at least what he believes to be the truth.>>

Rogue has posed:
Owen regards Lorna and offers her a light nod. "They need help." He tells her, Rogue looks over to Lorna then and just seems to be a bit lost in all of this, like she doesn't know where to emotionally stand one way or the other. Her eyes drift over to Kitty then back to her 'father'.

"I've got the scar." He says to the whole room at-large though. "Anyone who wants to look at it is free to do so." He can tell they're not fully onboard with what he's saying, but he wouldn't expect anyone to be. "DNA tests, willing to do those, whatever it takes."

Again he nods once to Kitty then. "I've been there whole time... I wasn't on the infiltration team until I found out about what happened, whats it been, four months now?" He asks, centering his stare on Rogue. "You found them." He says directly to her now. "You found them and they almost got you too. They came back, said that they had the 'daughter of the Queen' in their possession but lost her to some team of mutants." He scans his eyes around the room and all of their faces. "Which I'm assuming is all of you... lovely people." He says with a smirk.

"Thank you." He adds with a nod. "For saving her, for keeping her out of there. Because she's on their priority list. Its why they came back today, its why I made sure hell or high water to be here to help stop it. I'm not going to let them get her like they got Pris.""

Owne reaches down to pick up the black robe and he starts to unfold it until he can put his hand into a pocket, then draws out a beat up old leather book. "I have it here." He says, dropping that journal onto a table. "This is their patterns of entry into this reality, where and when they show up to get recruits and supplies... They can't maintain a full society cut off from Earth without coming here periodically for resources to maintain everything. Maps, names, and more are in there." He motions to the book. "The doorways are opened by Cold and his First Lieutenant. We're not entirely sure how they do it, honestly, but it has odd reactions to people who aren't cleared to enter them." He motions to Rogue. "Like the white in her hair. It means she wasn't cleared to touch the doorway..." He stares at Rogue then, realizing that she must've tried to chase after him all those years back.