7614/Down Time at the Mansion

Down Time at the Mansion
Date of Scene:	24 May 2019
Location:	Rec Room - Xavier's School
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Polaris, X-Man, Nightcrawler, Cypher

---

Polaris has posed:
Lorna was sitting in the corner of the rec room, a pair of earbuds in her ears as she sat morosely clicking through items on the glass thin, Genoshan made tablet in her grip. Her manicured nails clicked against the glassy surface as she would tap away at it, pause, watch whatever it was on her screen for a moment and then continue typing something. The green haired Princess of Genosha was clearly occupied, and given how distant she typically was toward the students the ones that remained over the long weekend more or less gave her the space.

No one was particularly interested in what the green haired mutant was up to if she wasn't actively throwing cars around.

X-Man has posed:
    Nathaniel "Nate" Grey, a man out of time, in a strange new world. One might think that he'd be exploring this timeline and all of its relative splendor. A world that isn't a literal Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland that looks like something from an old B-movie send up of Mad Max. One might think that he'd be looking to find those threats that could lead to a timeline similar to his own, and eliminating them proactively, in order to preserve the majesty of this world.

    One would be wrong.

    This is a timeline where one has television. Soap operas. Movies. Netflix. All things absent in the world he hailed from. And yet, they give him a nostalgic feeling, bittersweet and warm, in the pit of his gut. Watching the almost comical overacting of daytime soaps conjures forth images of the only time he ever felt like he belonged somewhere. The closest he had ever felt to happiness in the world of Apocalypse. It reminded him of Forge and the other Outcasts, putting on plays written by a long dead man named Shake Spear. It reminds him of Sonique.

    Nate is sitting on a sofa in front of a large, flatscreen television. Barefoot and barechested, he wears only a pair of faded and worn denim pants to preserve some sense of modesty. His aurburn and white streaked hair is held back in a small tuft that is a tail at the back of his skull. He seems transfixed on the television, as Days of Our Lives plays out before him. A tear rolls down his cheek, while another fizzles and crackles in the amber light that emanates from his singular glowing eye.

Polaris has posed:
Lorna looked up at the rather dramatic music as it swelled and played out on the flat screen TV, a look of annoyance crossed her expression and she huffed. Her hand stretched out and with a flick of her wrist, the volume of the TV lowered. Such was her control that it didn't actually destroy or cause harm to the TV in question. Though from her position jammed into a corner chair it was at an awkward angle, and she couldn't clearly see who was watching the dramatic soap opera from her spot-- the greenette really couldn't find herself caring.

Perhaps she should, in a household filled with mutants of various tempers, abilities, and traumas, and perhaps she should have gotten up to asked to turn down the TV rather than just taking control as she had..

Her gaze returned to the tablet screen in front of her and she tapped away furiously at whatever it was on her screen.

X-Man has posed:
    When the volume on the tv starts to lower, Nate quirks a dark, thin brow heavenward. The idle crackling of psionic power that seems perpetually flaring from his left eye seems to agitate, with sparks and embers whipping up into the air about him. From where the shirtless mutant reclines on the sofa, he suddenly pops up to an upright position, and turns to look back at the green haired Mistress of Magnetism with a glare that is as heated as the sun itself. His handsome features, boyish, despite the rugged stubble beard on his chin, are stonefaced, his jaw set tight.

    "Okay. That was rude."

    But hey. Two can play that game, right? So, a small flash of light and Lorna's tablet doesn't just power down, but begins to restart itself.

    Just as Kurt makes his bombastic entrance, Nate is flashing a lopsided, taunting grin at Lorna and wiggling his eyebrows, but the sudden arrival of the elf brings the Psion to a start. Turning his attention, then, to Kurt, Nate lifts a hand and waves.

    "Hola! Boy-nose Nachos!"

Polaris has posed:
Lorna was so focused on her tablet she didn't even notice Nate's anger, or his rising as he flipped around to glare at her from his position on the couch. She wasn't prepared for her tablet to flick off and restart, but she sensed the function on the electronic cut out. She made an angry sound, clapping her hand against the side of the Genoshan tech, before she sniffed and caught the tell tale scent of Kurt's arrival. She glanced up, and spotted Nate on the couch and came to rightly assume what had just happened. Her green eyes narrowed and she pulled out her earbuds one at a time and stood.

"Uhm, excuse me, but what the hell? I was on an important chat with members of the Genoshan development committee. Your crappy Soap Opera was too loud. There are other people here besides you." She bit out, her tone the sort that typically sent the Palace workers scattering because someone messed up.

Not that it meant much in the Mansion, but it was a natural slip of tone for the green haired Princess.

Nightcrawler has posed:
    Frowning at the beginning of the argument, Kurt looks between the two. Hopping down to the ground and then scuttling to be closer to both, moving on all fours until close enough to hop onto the back of a chair, balancing easily where another might fall.
    "Peace! Peace please?" brow knitting, "No need to start a fight, ja?" looking almost feline with the way his hands and feet cling to the furniture he's perched on.
    "Nathan, it is good to see you..." digging into a satchel he is carrying, drawing out a snow-globe of The Green Monster at Fenway park, "I brought back souviniers." looking to Lorna next, absently digging in the bag again.

X-Man has posed:
    "All you had to do was ask," Nate fires back at Lorna, his head tilting to one side, causing a wayward strand of silvery bangs to fall free of their tethered placement in his tail. His form rises up from the sofa altogether, held aloft purely by the most effortless exertion of his will, carrying him over the back of the furnishing and then gracefully righting his position so that his bare feet touch the floor near Lorna.

    "I might not have been around here for my entire life, and in the grand scheme of things, I'm still a newcomer, but..." He says, settling his gold and blue eyes on Lorna's own. His voice is steady and calm. Even warm. Sympathetic. "I know that you weren't always a Princess, so maybe you should remember that and ditch the self-important attitude. It's not a good look for you. Nobody likes a tyrant who thinks they're above everyone else. You can be better than that."

    Kurt's attempt at peacemaking prompts Nate to lift his hands up to either side of himself as if warding off any argument. "Nothing to worry about, Mister Wagner. I'm not trying to argue here. She acted rude. I was rude back. There's nothing more to it."

    For what it's worth, despite having said those things to Lorna just moments ago, Nate really does seem like he's genuinely over it. He instead, holds his hand out, palm turned up and open, as the snowglobe comes slowly hovering through the air towards him. He looks at it, turning it around in his grasp, before giving it a shake. His lips curl into a smile. "This is cool. You know, where I'm from, Fenway Park was used for a detention center. There wasn't much green left on that wall."

    The look on his face suddenly suggest one not ask what that wall was like in his home time.

Polaris has posed:
The narrow eyed look remained on Lorna's face, one hand settling on her hip while the other balanced the tablet in her grip. Nate wasn't //wrong//, but perhaps that was why it made her all the more angry. Irrationally angry and irritable at the situation entirely. She flicked her hand up again and the TV flipped through channels at random before it seemed to settle on some news channel. An angry man screamed at the camera, belting out anti-mutant rhetoric and the green haired mutant's expression soured before she flicked her wrist again and it turned off completely.

"There's plenty more to it, but it's not like you know or care about the world at large. Content to watch that drivel and insult others that actually try to prevent the world from going to shit." Lorna sniped, her anger hot and lingering at the surface of her voice. It wasn't Nate that she was angry at, but he was now the closest target of it. It wasn't fair, but the green haired mutant didn't bite her tongue or hold her anger as she typically did.

Cypher has posed:
Doug comes wandering through, holding a tablet -- he thumps it with his wrist, and then says, "Did something happen, my tablet just bricked--" He glances between Nate and Lorna, and instantly takes it all in. "Ah." He says. He holds the tablet up in one hand, and then discards it into a potted plant.

He looks back and forth between the two, and then glances to Kurt, and his eyebrows go up. "Fight night, huh? Takes me back. There was this one night that I wanted to watch a movie on the big screen, but there was this marathon of 'Magnum, P.I.' re-runs..." He glances between Nate and Lorna again, and assumes relaxed posture, chin in his hand.

Nightcrawler has posed:
Kurt Wagner flinches at the screaming man on the news, lips pursing and heaving a sigh. "Lorna, Lorna... we can not always focus on it. Sometimes you need rest..." looking to the TV again when it flicks off. "This is just going to circle until someone is shouting. Level heads, ja?"

X-Man has posed:
    "Okay," Nate says, looking up from the snowglobe as Lorna decides to change the channel on him and then proceed to give him a tongue lashing. He just looks from her, back to the tv, and then back to her. Still, he doesn't seem mad. More like almost amused. Holding up his hand in Lorna's direction, he says, "Alright. Look. If you mess with my TV without asking one more time, I'm going to send you to your room with no dinner and no more mutant powers for the evening, got it?"

    He doesn't seem to notice Doug walking in, despite the fact that Doug is possibly the only other person in this house that can appreciate the importance of Days of Our Lives. He knows all about the intensity that is the suspected Stephano clone!

    "Kurt's right. I know about it. I care about it. If I didn't, I wouldn't be here," Nate says. "And I've seen the flip side of that token, too. A world where mutants reign supreme. It's worse than this. By a long shot."

    A pause.

    "I could go out. Right now... I could go out and change the world. I have that power, Lorna Dane. I could remake this earth into the world that I want it to be. But it's not my place to do that. I know that it would be wrong to do. So... I have to find my distance. I can't focus on it all the time. I have to weigh how much I can intervene in a world that I'm not even supposed to exist within, because if I do too much, I'm enforcing my own will upon it. If I do that, then I'm no better than the people we stand up to, right?"

    He shrugs one shoulder, sending a series of ripples through his mostly exposed, chiseled physique. "But who the hell is insulting who? I'm just trying to show you that you're being unreasonable, and snotty."

Polaris has posed:
It was particularly silly, to explain the situation to anyone coming into the room why Lorna was utterly //enraged// so suddenly. Why the issue of the TV and the volume, or the changing channels had progressed to the magnokinetic nearly losing her mind with a full on electromagnetic melt down. But it was there, the green haired woman's features visibly darkened as Nate spoke, her misdirected anger fully turning on the dimensional traveler entirely. Despite Kurt and Doug's words it did not take a telepath to read how the electromagnetic pressure in the room suddenly sharpened or how the Genoshan tablet in her grip flickered on and off repeatedly, the screen rapidly spinning through pages and colors, nor the sudden static fizzle sound coming from her earbuds in her jean pockets.

But nothing else happened. There was no flickering of the lights, no frying of the TV or other electrical appliances. Her fields were so tightly woven around her that the bubble of damage was keyed only to her own private electronics on her person.

But she stood as if rooted to the spot, unable to do more than stand there glaring as if that alone could do harm. She didn't speak, didn't move, and hardly breathed as she stood there in a stony, heated, silence.

Nightcrawler has posed:
    A series of crackling sounds, snaps, and fizzles begin sounding, and soon into it, half whispered 'achs' of discomfort. Fur sticking out strait, and several static electric crackles running along his arms. Yes nothing is damaged, but there is still electromagnetism running through the area... and Kurt is fuzzy. He doesn't speak though, he just tries not to look embaressed as he flips his hair out of his eyes and then sigh as it doesn't quite come back down. "Kacken..."

Cypher has posed:
Doug looks at Kurt, and then says, mildly, "When Moonstar used to do this, it used to bring Bobby and I around sharp. Doesn't hurt to try it--"

He sticks two fingers in his mouth and lets out an ear-piercing whistle. *FWEET-FWEET!*

"Hey." Doug says, to the two of them, "Both of you are powerful enough to level a city without really trying. Allow me to try to de-escalate the situation?"

He moves to step between the two of them. "Lorna. Would you say that you feel that Nate has been cavalier in the way he's speaking to you, in a way that you feel is condescending?"

    Then he spins, and looks to Nate, "And Nate, am I correct in that you feel that Lorna is leaning too heavily on her station, and engaging in unilateral action when *you* feel that she should be... hm. ...More collaborative?"

"Feel free to correct me, I read emotions, not minds."

X-Man has posed:
    Of course, Nate also feels that pulse of energy washing over him, and making the fine hairs on his bared flesh stand on end along the backs of his arms and the tops of his broad shoulders. But, the young man's body language is as open and easy as ever. He seems, outwardly, at least, as calm as a Hindi cow. His fingers relax their grip on the snowglobe, letting it drift, tumbling over and over in slow motion, but never falling. Instead, it rises, and rolling as it is, floats over to land on a nearby table.

    The shrill whistle, though, breaks Nate's focus and he winces shut his golden left eye and lifts a finger to plug his ear.

    "No, man. That's not quite right. I'm not being cavalier about anything. If anyone's being condescending it's her, and that's the problem. She's letting her whole Princess thing get to her head. We're not her subjects and she can't just walk all over us. It's as much the attitude as it is the action."

    He wiggles that finger in his ear and opens his eye again. Looking back to Lorna, he lifts his chin ever so slightly, before cocking his head towards Doug. "Your turn. Tell him what's really eating you up. And for Kurt's sake, let down the fireworks. He looks like he's just walked barefoot over fifty yards of shag carpet."

    Lorna will feel a slight pressure in her mind, like a tingling that washes over her scalp, and then the spectral touch of fingers through her hair. It comes with it the soft, strangely reverberating sound of Nate's voice, directly in her thoughts, with a wave of calm. <<Or you could talk to me directly, here, and tell me what's really eating you up.>>

Polaris has posed:
Doug's sharply whistle did more to cut through Lorna's foggy hazy of intense and deepening anger. She winced, and just like that the electromagnetic current popped and broke utterly. The static whine of her earbuds stopped and the tablet stopped flickering. Luckily for her, the tech, being Genoshan in origin and upgraded by her father himself.. wasn't completely damaged due to the spike in her electromagnetic fields.

She winced, and grimaced, reaching up to rub her ear. She broke eye contact with Nate, and it seemed to serve its purpose to the point that the anger fled from her face. Her attention finally shifted to Doug, and she blinked, inhaling once as she if were about to speak. And then Nate beat her to the punch and spoke instead. Her face reddened, and her shoulders rolled back, heat returning to her expression but this time with no little embarrassment added to the mixture.

"He's being inconsiderate of others in the rec room and --" Then Nate was speaking directly to her //telepathically//. She froze, her eyes going round and wide and swiveled toward Nate himself as her whole body tensed. "Stay. Out. Of. My. Head." She snarled, low and heated, she dropped her tablet and it bounced on the floor though it didn't shatter. Her hands splayed wide at her sides as she glared at Nate again.

Cypher has posed:
Doug puts his hands on his hips, and says, "And now I can see that I'm at the limits of my powers. Ok, escalating to the next page of the Book of Moonstar." He points to Nate. "You. You can watch Days of our Lives On-Demand in the Study, on *that* side of the house."

Then he turns to Lorna, and says, "And *you*, you can go read quietly in the Conservatory, on *that* side of the house, until the two of you can stand to be in the same room as one another again."

"Or if you're going to INSIST on this... outside! I'd like for there to still be a house when we're done, and you're right under my room--"

Nightcrawler has posed:
    "Nathan! Even Charles and Jean feel that is rude!" Kurt hops off of his chair as Lorna bites that out. "Ask -outside- of someones mind! This is not your future! You do not need to act like you're speaking in secret across a battlefield or a holding building!" He stands as tall as he can, trying to summon up as much authority as he can. But he's Kurt, and he is still all puffed out like someone took a bag of vegitable dye to a kitty because of it.
    "You owe her an apology!" pointing one thick blue sausage finger at Nate, moving to actually interpose himself between Lorna and Nate... even though psychic... It's the bodylanguage that's important."

X-Man has posed:
    "Inconsiderate?!" Nate says, and looks genuinely, truly aghast. Like, he's smiling, but it's a smile of complete and absolute disbelief. "Inconsiderate?! Really? Literally doing nothing but minding my own business, watching television. Literally being as considerate as one can possibly be, by... you know... literally not talking to or bothering a single soul. Until a single soul decided to randomly mess with me. And you actually have the gall to say that I'm the one who is inconsiderate?!"

    Nate shakes his head, rolling his eyes. Then, when Kurt decides to chime in, Nate just shoots him a glare. He points one finger at the fuzzy blue elf and shakes his head.

    "Stop right there. Literally the only thing I did was offer her the option of having a private conversation. Obviously she doesn't want it. Which is fine. But I don't owe her anything, and if anyone is owed any apology here, it is me."

    Now, it seems that Nate's cool is, in fact, starting to melt. Looking back to Lorna, it seems Nate has forgotten Doug for the moment. "Whatever your problem is, it isn't me. And if you keep this up, you absolutely WILL regret it. I'm done playing games here. I tried to be cool, but you're being... unrealistically aggressive for no reason. I've had my limit with being talked down to and lied about. It ends now. Either walk away or behave like a civilized adult. Those are your choices. Decide now."

Cypher has posed:
    Doug finds himself standing between two apocalyptically powerful mutants, trying not to take sides - and him so very, very squishable and non city-levelable. I mean you can't exactly tell these two 'If you two don't stop it right now I'll get on my laptop and UPSET THE GLOBAL ECONOMY' now can you.

Doug puffs his cheeks out, and rolls his eyes upward... and then he starts a different tactic.

He starts to swear. He starts in Urdu. He cycles through language after language, letting out every cuss he can think of, at the top of his lungs. And he just. Keeps. Going. He's swearing in Shi'ar now.

Polaris has posed:
The tension rocketed for several beats, and an alarm pinged from Lorna's tabet. The green haired mutant exhaled a shaky breath, shook her head and dropped her hands to her sides. A sneer twisted her lips and Lorna bent, twisting around and grabbed her tablet off the floor and muttered darkly under her breath. "Whatever."

There was no longer even a hum of electrostatic from the mutant, it seemed that something had snapped and she'd disengaged as soon as She glanced at Doug and Kurt, "I'm going to a business meeting to discuss a way to stop the Sentinels. And see if something can be done to stop our impending destruction." She flicked the tablet back on, seemed pleased that it wasn't damaged.

Green eyes centered on Kurt, "Don't bother, I'll just talk to my father about using his helmet the next time I bother to visit." She muttered, and turned to leave.

Nightcrawler has posed:
    Kurt doesn't move from where he stands, but his glowing eyes are slits now. "You owe -eachother- an apology." pointing his tail at Lorna, "YOU can ask nicely. YOU may have important business. But NATE is deserving just as much respect as you are. If you feel he is viewing too loudly... both of you are taking choice away from one another" he grumbles, "Mein Gott." shaking his head and blowing out a breath, looking back to Nate.
    "You may have been offering a private conversation, but you entered her mind without permission to do so. Would you like me to appear in your room and ask for a private conversation? Or would either of you simply blast me through a wall for daring to intrude on your private demense? I can do it. I know what your rooms look like. I can get in. But I think it better to knock on the door."

X-Man has posed:
    "Or you could use your dreking big girl words, Princess," Nate spits back, the derision in his voice dripping from his lips like acid as he addresses her with that title. "Or maybe just stay at home with your father who would likely see us all in a place where humans would be kept in cages and used only for breeding stock. One or the other would do just fine."

    Doug's cursing has Nate sort of reeling back, though, side eyeing him with a look of apprehension. He's... not really certain how to even respond to that. Did they break him? Some of those didn't even sound like languages. Was that the AOL phone modem noise he just made?

    Finally, he looks to Kurt and rolls his eyes. "I literally just asked if she wanted to talk privately. That IS knocking on the damned door. I wasn't READING, I wasn't PRYING, I literally did nothing but offer her a private conversation where she could tell me what was really bothering her without making her lose face in front of you two. I'm NOT apologizing for that. I was, again, trying to do her a solid. She refused. IF I wasn't knocking then I'd have forced the issue, and I'd still be in there. I'm not."

    He just looks around. Lorna being literally the worst human being he has ever encountered, and coming from a man who was created by Sinister, that's saying a lot. Kurt now attacking him with self righteousness. Doug.... Doug'ing. At the top of his lungs. All he was trying to do was watch his soap operas. That was it. That's all he wanted. The veins in his forehead are starting to press out against the flesh at his temples, and the flashing light of his eye is becoming wild, and jagged, like splinters of shattered glass transformed into psychic light. Golden arcs of electricity begin to sizzle and pop, crackling and crawling across his flesh in the divots where muscle creases and is etched like stone into his form. Each of those muscles tenses, sinewy and trembling. His fists clench. The elastic band holding his hair back snaps, and his hair flows loose, but begins to rise and sway about his skull as if he were underwater.

    "Can you all get the hell off of my nutsack? I didn't do a thing wrong!"

Polaris has posed:
Lorna was already heading to the door, and didn't seem interested in stopping, not when Nate spoke. Not in the least, she seemed to have cut off completely whatever was there. She kept walking, all the way to the door where she stopped and pointedly did not turn around to face anyone in the rec room again. "I apologize for using my powers on the television. I won't touch it again while someone else is watching it, nor will I attempt to sit in the rec room while doing anything of importance. That was my fault in the first place." She offered stiffly, her voice clipped.

Then she continued on. She seemed intent on not stopping this time, and the double doors to the rec room swung shut behind her and cut off the sound of her heels on the wooden floors of the hallway.

Cypher has posed:
    All of a sudden, Doug just... stops. Mid-swear, in Cantonese.

    "...Sucks ass when you feel like nobody's listening to you, doesn't it?"

    Then he glances between the two, and says, simply, "I have the power to understand, but as you can see, I can't compel people to listen. And it's extremely *frustrating* when nobody's listening. Isn't it."

    He grabs his tablet out of the potted plant, and waves it, lightly. "...I'm going to go see what I can salvage off this." He watches Lorna go.

Then he rubs the back of neck, while glancing to Nate.

Nightcrawler has posed:
    Standing, hands folded behind his back, staring at Nathan, "It does, Doug - it truly does... Good luck, I'd offer aid, but" he raises his hands "I don't use computers." he continues to watch Summers, tail flicking back and forth, "Just take into account... She clearly does not agree that it was knocking, and it is her mind." he dares take a step forward,
    "I apologize if I sound accusing, I do not mean to be. I apologize if it felt like I was taking sides, I am not. I am annoyed at both of you, and I will pray that you both find peace and can find some sort of reconcilliation."

X-Man has posed:
    No sooner than Lorna says her apology, as terse as it might be, and as pointed as it might be, a change overcomes Nate. His shoulders drop, and the tension built up in every teeming muscle in his shredded body relaxes, so that he's not covered in visible veings straining against skin, nor are there arcs of psionic power rippling across his body. His fingers relax, unballing his fists where crescent moon shaped marks start to seep blood from his palms.

    "It's fine," He says. "All of it is fine. I'm just... All she had to do was literally ask me to turn it down if she was having a hard time. I'd have done it. Not a problem at all. I'd even have apologized to her for it being too loud. If she'd have literally even said a word. It doesn't matter, and at this point, I really don't care how she takes anything, Kurt. Sorry, not sorry. That whole exchange tells me that she has a very skewed concept of boundaries and reality. Her viewpoint is that she gets to make the rules and do as she wills to whoever she wants, when she wants. She's got her head up her own ass so far that the only thing she sees is her own self righteousness."

    He shrugs, and sighs, before heading towards the door himself. "And all of this has completely ruined the vibe. Take it easy, my guys."

Nightcrawler has posed:
Kurt Wagner nods and then as soon as he had come, Kurt is gone - disappearing into smoke with the trademark BAMF of his passage the only sign of leaving.

Cypher has posed:
    "Everyone has reasons for being why they are the way they are." Doug says. "...But you don't have to get along with everyone around you, either." He claps his hands together, lightly. "Nun, das war ein Clusterfick." He runs a finger through his hair.