9323/Blood and Ichor... Four

Blood and Ichor... Four
Date of Scene:	26 September 2019
Location:	Wellness Office - Xavier's School
Synopsis:	Dani, Laura and Samuel Morgan try to antagonize Jeremy. It doesn't really work.
Cast of Characters:	Loki, Samuel Morgan, X-23, Moonstar, Shadowcat
Tinyplot:	Asgard's Requiem

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Loki has posed:
The wellness medical room has been hit by some interesting events. It looks like someone inside had some kind of epic tantrum, or, well. That a telekinetic was in the room. The mansion has that sort of thing. Lots of small objects are thrown all over the place, a tray with a sandwich on it is upended on the floor at the end of the bed. The bed itself looks empty, and there's no signs of blood or blue ichor in it: which is strange, overall, since it was everywhere last night. There doesn't appear to be a boy at all, either. Jeremy Larkin doesn't seem to be there.

Still, there's other evidence around. Recently, there was another person bleeding heavily in the bed next to the boy's: the curtain is still drawn, and there's a mess from that situation, but that person (Shannon) has since been moved away.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    It's been a day, and Sam has been busy getting back in shape. A five mile run before breakfast, a session in the Danger Room, 'special' class... He's only recently heard that Shannon was taken down to the medical bay again because of something that happened between her and 'Jeremy'. Running into Wolfsbane made it clear that, subsequently, 'Jeremy' has simply disappeared... and Sam's blood boiled.

    He strides into the room, talking to someone with him. "He was here, now he isn't. And if he can leave unnoticed, there is a flaw in our security. We have to find it, and him, urgently."

X-23 has posed:
    Laura was asked along to assist. "It depends. If he has magic, then that could bypass defenses." Still, now that she's here, she'll go ahead and take a few deep breaths. There's an awful lot that she can learn from scents in a place, and it's there that she'll start. Who she smells, what she smells. What trails go where.

Moonstar has posed:
Currently, Dani Moonstar is outside, grooming Brightwind, who seems to be jumpy tonight. Whispering into his ear, Dani tries to sooth her winged horse, to no avail. "It is okay Brightwind. Scott has an errand for me to run. I will not be far from you. Do not worry. You are ever in here." Dani taps her chest above her heart, and tosses an apple in Brightwind's direction. With a couple bites, it was gone, but Brightwind's eyes were still concerned.

Walking into the mansion, Dani casually removes her gloves, and tucks them in her belt. With a shake of her head, her hair falls back behind her, down over her shoulders. No ponytials tonight, she hadn't had time. She was wearing her regular X-Man outfit, nothing out of the ordinary. No armor, no sword, no spear. Just her. With a sigh, she heads towards the wellness medical room, and what she could sense within. Something...wrong. An echo.

With another sigh, Dani walks into the room, opening herself up ever so slightly to the psychic energy inside. She could already feel the headache coming, as evidence by the wince she expresses in her face. "Another Advil night..." she says quietly. She hears the two voices ahead of her, not recognizing them yet, but her attention was elsewhere. "Evening." She says, cooly but not coldly.

Loki has posed:
The room is full of psychic pain to Dani's senses. REAL pain, from two sources, two very different ones. One very difficult to pin down, a mercurial magic sort, and then Shannon's. Shannon was in a lot of pain, and it's printed in the room. So was the other person. And there's been magic sprayed in this room. Some of his horrifyingly corrosive, but it's cleaned up very well.

"Something happen?" Jeremy asks from the back restroom. He comes out from there. He's cleaned up, presumably in the bathroom; which means he looks drastically different from before. The young man is about fourteen at the most, wearing new looking clean jeans, a white t-shirt. He has his backpack looped over one shoulder. His hair is somewhat long, brown to shoulder length. His hands have shallow cuts on them: cuts which glitter softly with a strange blue tone, as if someone had dripped some kind of blue substance into the injuries on his hands and wrists. The marks seem to follow vein patterns: they aren't just random.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "Yes, you did." There's no trace of Sam's joviality of last night. Friends have gotten hurt, friends he cares about, and he doesn't have too many of those. If his eyes had been daggers, Jeremy would have been flayed alive. "You have explaining to do, so you're going to sit down, keep your hands where I can see them, and answer questions." Fingers curl into fists, and Laura should be easily able to notice his elevated heart rate, the telltale signs of someone on a hair trigger.

    His head turns slowly from Jeremy over to Dani, notices the uniform, and then swings back again.

X-23 has posed:
    "A good deal of blood, apparently." Laura answers Jeremy's question. She's not thrilled with what she's picking up; decay is never a good thing to be detecting in a place with live people. While she notices Samuel's reactions, she neither calls it out nor asks him to check it...she's keeping herself in a combat-ready state as well, in case it should be needed.

    Dani gets a once-over, but she smells enough of the scents of other people Laura knows that she's not TOO concerned; she doesn't know the other woman, but she seems like she ought to be here.

Moonstar has posed:
Dani closes her eyes, feeling the pain that this was causing her. Trying to stop the intrusion into her psyche, she lets it in slowly at first, feeling it out with her mutant powers as well as her other senses. She motions her hand towards the other bed first..."Shannon." With a nod, she touches the area where the emanations were coming from, and grits her teeth.

With a sideways glance at Jeremy, she opens her eyes, and mutters, "Yes. Something happened...and you are going to tell us what." Her eyes flow back to Samuel, and then Laura, and finally back to Jeremy. Her eyes narrow, and she opens herself up a little more to the psychic and mystical situation...but not all the way, always leaving a reserve.

Magic. She can feel it. The "taste" is familiar, but still unknown. Enough to make her bring her guard up, while still trying to find out what was going on.

Loki has posed:
"Is this about Shannon?" Jeremy guesses, with sudden expressive sorrow. "She's okay? When she left she was okay. I asked if she needed healing. Did something happen? Why was she taken out of here? Not to the morgue, right?" Jeremy asks, peppering Samuel with increasingly more worried questions. He comes out of the bathroom tiredly, moving past them back towards the bed he was originally on, and sits back down in it. His hands do stay where Samuel can see them, but that might just be incidental instead of obeying the demands.

Jeremy in particular is focused on Dani now, watching her as she examines things, reacts. There's a curiosity to his gaze. "She helped to heal some serious wounds."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "It is absolutely about Shannon." Sam confirms, watching Jeremy move to the bed like an air defense battery tracking a target. "Backpack off and open, slowly. And then you're going to tell us where you've been, how you got out and what happened to you. In that order."

X-23 has posed:
    Laura is silent a long moment. She hasn't met Jeremy before this, so she has nothing to go on by way of comparison. Finally she'll ask "Why does it smell of death and rot here?" Seriously, that's not a smell anybody ought to have on them.

Moonstar has posed:
Dani stops when Shannon's name was mentioned. She has met her, so knows the name to go with the psychic impression. "She is still alive. I would know if she was dead." That last was made with a cold finality to her voice. The sound of the grave.

Dani moves aside as Jeremy sits on the bed, taking three steps back and two to the left with precision. All the while, her eyes were on Jeremy. What was that feeling? The one you get when something was at the tip of your tongue, but you couldn't figure out what your senses were telling you?

Letting Samuel take control and take charge, Dani hovers in the background, trying to figure out her initial feelings when she came into this room. Magic has a flavor, and she was struggling to figure out why it was feeling familiar to her. It was distracting her from Samuel's next words, and Laura's as well. However, Laura's words hit a chord. "It is not just a smell, Laura is it? I'm Dani."

Loki has posed:
"Is she okay? You're acting like I attacked her. I did not. I'm telling you nothing until I find out if she's okay," blocks Jeremy firmly. But then Dani confirms Shannon is not dead, so Jeremy nods once. "It was her idea."

Jeremy gives Samuel a frowning look at the demand, and removes his backpack. He unzips it, and turns it some to show the contents. There is a world of twisting lights and vapor inside the backpack, as if it were a portal to another reality or plane of existence. "I'm not sure what you're going to get out of me doing this, but okay. I'm just glad to be healed right now, really," Jeremy says. It's magical, though it is difficult to exactly sort the magic: there's a lot going on with that backpack.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "Of course it was her idea. She's kindhearted, she helps people, can't help herself." This is starting to become frustrating. Sam paces in front of the bed, eyeing the backpack and then snapping his gaze back onto Jeremy. "Answer the questions. You disappeared, I want to know why. And don't insult my intelligence by saying that you just walked into the bathroom."

    Finding that he's been digging his fingernails into his palms, his eyes finally leave the younger teen, and he takes three steps back, to compose himself, breathing deeply.

X-23 has posed:
    Laura looks at the backpack, disturbed, and takes a couple steps back from that. She frowns at it, and answers Dani without taking her eyes off the strange sights there. "I'm not certain. Something feels wrong about all of this." Purely instinctual, though.

Moonstar has posed:
Dani inhales deeply as the backpack is revealed. Her eyes widen, as she prepares herself for the attack that, so far, hasn't come. Then, her senses kick in, and she relaxes a smidgeon. Wait, illusions. Huh. Now that was something she understood. "I agree Laura. Something doesn't feel right. However, we really can't blame this child yet, can we Samuel?" Her eyes look at Samuel for a second, but they never really left Jeremy.

Suddenly Dani nods. "Well. Laura. Samuel. Let's leave Jeremy alone for now, so he can recover." Her voice was firm, the "teacher" voice broking no argument. "Let's go. Jeremy. Get some rest we can talk later. I will let Shannon know you were asking about her."

Danin then turns to leave, waving the other two students towards the door.

Loki has posed:
"Nah, I didn't leave. I was here," Jeremy shrugs a little bit. He then promptly seems to disappear, and reappears in the bathroom, without the backpack. It remains on the bed. "It's not a big deal. I'm magical," he shrugs, staying in the bathroom door, now.

And then Dani seems to suddenly decide everything is fine. "Sure. I'll rest. Can you bring the other healer to see me? Chris? I still have injuries on my hands," asks Jeremy hopefully, showing his hands. There's some blood seeping there, from those remaining cuts. "He offered," Jeremy reminds them.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "Yet." It's a word that is laden with finality, and it seems that Bean would dearly like to say a lot more... but he was given an order. Moreover, an order he understood for what it was, couched as it was in a suggestion. He takes three steps backwards again, keeping his eyes on Jeremy, and then turns on his heel after making sure Laura still has eyes on. When Bean leaves, he doesn't just walk out, he stalks out, with a tread that promises pain for anyone that happens to be in the wrong place, say the wrong thing, or can be accused of looking at him a bit funny. Honestly, it's probably best he doesn't acknowledge Jeremy's request. That just wouldn't go well for anyone involved.

Moonstar has posed:
Keeping an eye on Jeremy, and making sure Samuel and Laura are out safe, Dani goes last, closing the door behin them. "Whew." Dani says when the three of them were alone. "Scott sent me a message that Doctor Strange told him that Jeremy was very dangerous, and we had to get out of there...fast." Concentrating for a moment, she sends a message to Scott letting him know they were okay, and what happened.

"Thanks for the backup you two. I was worried going in there alone, but I'm glad I had you both to help me. That one was close." Then, Dani gets distracted for several seconds, as though she was in a semi-catatonic state. Her lips were moving, but she wasn't making any noice. As though communicating with someone telepathically.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Once out the door, and with the door closed, Sam seems to relax just a fraction. He's still visibly angry, but not seething as he was just now, feeling no need to keep up the charade. "I know we couldn't trust him!" Fist meets palm with a meaty smack, but it was that or punch the wall. "Doctor Strange. Again. That's the second time that name's come up around that kid. Next you're going to tell me he actually got attacked by a demon, like he claims? Did he summon it himself? Wouldn't put it past that..." what follows is a very long, very angry sounding stream of invective, switching from German to French to Spanish and back and forth several times. It doesn't take a linguistic genius to understand the main thrust of it...

Loki has posed:
Jeremy MIGHT be mentally sending a message or two to Dani. Not that anyone other than Dani will hear them. In the room, as the door shuts, he reappears on the bed. Perhaps he never moved from the bed in the first place.

He picks up the backpack, and gives a serene little knowing look to Dani through the closing door. A smile that's very amused.

And Jeremy disappears. Again.

Shadowcat has posed:
Kitty Pryde comes hurrying down the hallway. Lockheed is riding on her shoulder. The trip back from New York was a fast one. Thank goodness. She'd gotten tired of dealing with 55 miles in rush hour to get back and forth. Though right now the traffic situation in the greater New York area is not what is on her mind.

Kitty sees the trio up ahead and heads for them through the luxuriously appointed mansion hallways. "Hey you three," Kitty says as she approaches them. "What's the situation?" she asks, glancing towards the Wellness Office. She sends off a quick message on her phone.

Moonstar has posed:
Hearing Samuel speak, but mostly distracted, Dani looks at him and blinks. "Not a kid." Dani next looks at Laura and says, "Loki." Dani taps her right temple with her right index finger, and says, "He was talking to me. Just then. When I figured out who he was. He was...taunting me." As the door closes, Dani sees that look, and she frowns.

"Dammit!" Dani yells, not realising what she just said. "Wait...no. Brightwind. I need to go! Sorry Kitty!" With that, Dani rushes away, down the hall, calling out, "Good to see you! Gotta run!" and towards the yard where her horse was being kept. "Don't you dare, Trickster! I will hurt you..." That last, as Dani rushes around the corner.

Loki has posed:
A check inside the medical room if anyone looks for Jeremy will show it ACTUALLY IS still splattered in disgusting ichor, blue magical corrosive goop. There isn't any blood, but the ichor has shown up, now that the illusionist is gone.

That might be why the room smelled of decay. Illusion didn't cover that entirely. It's eating through the bed slowly. Unpleasant.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Wait, what? Sam breaks off graphically describing Jeremy's dubious parentage (or lack thereof) in angry French, when he processes what Dani has just said. "Loki? Who or what is..." But the main point he gets from it? That 'Jeremy' has decided to pull a disappearing act. Again.

    This time he isn't taking chances and looks over to Kitty just before flinging the door to the wellness office open again. "I am about to commit murder, so for our combined sakes, I hope this guy is actually gone." What he sees stops him in his tracks for just a moment. With great care, Bean picks his way through the destruction, glares at the empty and slowly dissolving bed, and boots open the door to the bathroom in the off chance that Loki might be in there.

    Finding nobody to vent his rage and frustration on, Sam-Bean walks back into the room, considers a rolling table with a few bits of detritus on, contemplates it for a few seconds, and then with great care and precision BOOTS it across the room. "Scheisse."