9764/Hydra Really Does A Number On People

Hydra Really Does A Number On People
Date of Scene:	26 October 2019
Location:	Backyard - Xavier's School
Synopsis:	Samuel finds Vi using one of her powers. Despite so much separating them, they find common ground.
Cast of Characters:	Vi, Samuel Morgan

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Vi has posed:
It's a cool day but not too bad. It's still early afternoon, with plenty of sunlight left even though the days are noticeably starting to get a little shorter. Vi went for a walk across the expansive grounds of the school. Looking at the trees with their colorful leaves which Brian told her are normally green except at this time of year.

Eventually she ended up down on a stretch of grass down by the little river that feeds Breakstone Lake. A wind stirs some of the orange and red leaves, just prior to Vi flying through those branches and bursting out into the open air, about ten feet off the ground. She arcs forward and then suddenly begins to move another direction, swinging her arms to turn her body to face that direction. She flies forward another twenty feet and then begins to veer back, doing a half circle and heading back towards the tree.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Fresh air, sunshine. Solitude. These are all things Bean needs at the moment, especially after his secretive little jaunts into New York city in the last few nights. It was one thing to aspire to be a hero, quite another to go assist in the downfall of a criminal organisation that spans three major cities. And the surprising part? He'd been good at it. That was foremost on his mind... that the skills he was taught by an organisation dedicated entirely to evil would be used to bring about positive change. But then he had done so by assisting another crime lord... Is it better or worse that other heroes and vigilantes were there as well?

    Is he, in fact, not simply furthering HYDRA goals without being aware of it? It's been driving him mad. Not to mention the shock of finding out that even the most notorious crime lords of the city were utterly incapable of formulating a tactical plan worthy of that name. Is that what it's like to be a hero?

    The musings end when something flits through the trees and bursts out into view. Ah. Bean comes to a stop, just watching, arms crossed over his chest. The last thing he wants to do is spook Vi. Again.

Vi has posed:
Vi isn't flying with the natural ease and graze of Rogue or Superman. It's more like Spider-Man without webs. Like she's suddenly being pulled a different direction rather than just willing herself like Rogue can.

Vi shoots up into the air suddenly, going up two hundred feet, gradually slowing as gravity reclaims her and then begins to pull her back down. She lets herself fall, but slows as if there are little pulses of force draining off her speed, until finally her bare feet land on the ground with only the force of dropping a foot or two. She looks around the area with a bit of a pleased look. As she does, she finally catches sight of Samuel Bean. Her face takes on an uncertain look, but not a hostile one.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    He'd never seen anything quite like it before. Over the past few weeks, he has seen several people fly. Shannon and Pixie's winged flight, very much like birds. Cannonball with his brute force approach. Ororo and Lorna gliding like gravity is purely optional... this is the first time Bean has seen someone fly in a way that even vaguely seems to resemble a way that is physically possible, or at least nods to the laws of physics and thermodynamics. Faith in physics? Restored. Sort of.

    Rather than approach, he gives a half wave, a non-committal gesture that invites approach but doesn't socially require it.

Vi has posed:
Vi stands looking at Samuel for several more moments, and sees his wave. The same wind the stirred the leaves does the same with the girl's dark hair that hangs down a bit past her shoulders. She glances around her and then holds up her hand and something flies to it from the ground nearby. She drops it into the pouch on her belt and then repeats the gesture seven more times, retrieving objects that were scattered about the area. From the looks of it, more of those metal washers like the one she shot into the wall in the school.

Once they are back in their pouch, Vi walks over towards Samuel, taking her time in reaching him. She slips her hands into the pockets of her jeans. She's wearing the SHIELD sweatshirt again, having worn the same two shirts and the sweatshirt each time Samuel has seen her. Vi studies Samuel for a moment before finally saying, "Hi," in a soft voice.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Had he been looking at the ground, he might have seen the washers. But, if Bean is honest with himself, he probably wouldn't have. Something to keep in mind if he ever means to integrate Vi into the team. It's something that just won't switch off...

    "Hi there." Bean replies, at least uncrossing his arms. Open body language... they'd talked about that in special class recently. Try to appear non-threatening by not always going into a posture from which you can defend or attack in an instant. Or at least, don't make it seem that way. "Quite beautiful out here, isn't it?"

Vi has posed:
Vi's posture is meek. A posture of someone who is trying to project nothing to draw notice. It likely worked well when she was younger, though the girl is nineteen now - the school's systems indicate that's what the SHIELD forensic dentist estimated of her age - and she does stand out in the ways girls often do.

But it's a posture he'd have seen before. Vi does lift her eyes enough to peek at him a little more than she would have in that other place, though. She finally takes her eyes away to look around. The place river flows on slowly, lined with hardwoods and a few pines. The lawns well-kept by the grounds crews, and still some green though it is yellowing with the colder weather and shorter sunlight.

"It really is," Vi says softly. "I never imagined the land had such colors," She says of the trees. Further north, people take entire weekends to just drive and look at the changing trees, or so Samuel would probably have heard from people at the school. Up into Vermont and Hew Hampshire especially.

Vi looks back to Samuel, hands stuffed in her pockets still. Rocking a bit on her bare feet. "How did you... you know. End up with them?" she asks softly.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "I've not seen as much of it as I would have liked." Bean begins, looking away as well, changing his posture to be less like a camp guard, making a conscious effort not to project the aura of authority. It's hard, but he's trying. Trees. Grass. Fresh water. "It reminds me a bit of a place where I spent a few years of my childhood. The rest of it..." He gives a wry smile, looking back to Vi. "It wasn't quite Echo, not by a long shot. But it wasn't as nice as this."

    That, it seems, is it for his opening gambit, an attempt to establish common ground, before he even begins to answer the question. "I'd like to say that I had no choice. In the most technical sense, that would be correct. They made me. Literally made me, and decided what I should be. They changed their minds later on. But I need to be honest... for quite a few years, I was a willing agent. I believed in what they taught me. Some of it, I still do."

Vi has posed:
Vi stands, petite body slightly slouched to further diminish her size. It's something she'll have to learn to stop doing, and she's not even aware she does. She lets her dark hair fall, partway covering one side of her face as the dark brown eyes peek out at Samuel while he answers.

Her hands in her pockets want to tighten though she makes them stay open. It takes Vi a little while to say anything next. Just the breeze and the stirring of the leaves for sound, until finally she asks, "How did you get here? How did you get away from them? Why did you get away from them, if you... if you did that. Willingly?"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "Have you ever heard the saying, you can only push someone so far before they start pushing back?" Bean turns to look at Vi, try to look her in the eyes. His own hands go into his pockets, and that's not a posture he takes up often. It means he's at a disadvantage to defend himself, and it makes his shoulders slump slightly. "In my case, they were trying to push me until I broke, because I'm a mutant. You know what they're like, they would never allow a mutant to not be a slave, or a puppet. It was a punishment, for me and for the scientist that made me. He... " A pause and a deep sigh. "He was like a father. And so when he saw what they were doing to me, he organised a defection to SHIELD. They caught wind of it on the night we were supposed to run."

    The wind blows through the leaves as Bean looks out over the grass, to something that might be a few miles distant. "He was killed, I nearly died as well. Fought my way out. SHIELD found me, grabbed me, put me behind a locked door, where I belong."

Vi has posed:
Vi listens quietly, one bare foot shifting to rub at the other for a moment, but otherwise mostly motionless. As Samuel finishes the story, she looks away from him for a few moments. The lands is so beautiful, yet the things they have to talk about want to cast a shadow over that beauty. Vi's thoughts turn to wondering if that's what Hydra is, if that's their goal. She rarely wastes time on thinking about things like that. Maybe this place is rubbing off on her.

Vi looks back to Samuel, biting her lip as she thinks about how the man was like a father to him. "I'm sorry you lost him," she says quietly, looking down towards the ground. "My brother left me too," he says very quietly. "When I was still a Little. Just never came back," she says. Given where she lived, when someone disappeared it usually meant only one thing.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "I'm sorry about that too." Bean says eventually, trying to go through his memory to see if he had ever done anything to anyone that looked vaguely similar to Vi. Unfortunately that search comes up as inconclusive... too many faces, too many memories.

Vi has posed:
The girl walks over closer towards Samuel, having left a fair amount of space between them before now. Vi reaches up and runs her fingers through her hair. "I barely know what to think about anything here," she says. "And you... are even more confusing than the rest," the teen says, shaking her head.

"I have every reason to hate you. And you're probably the only person who understands... anything," she says quietly. A few words spoken at different times by other students about her leap back out of Vi's memories. They don't know how sensitive her hearing can be when she wishes it.

Vi lets out a deep breath in a rush of air, shaking her head.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Given that Vi has taken a few steps, Bean sidles a few strides closer as well. It's like a game of chess, where the board is just not marked anywhere but in the minds of the participants. "This place... six weeks ago, I didn't even know it existed. I was in a SHIELD cell, figured I'd be there my entire life. Then they call me up to see the warden, he hands me off to an agent, she hands me over to two people I'd never met. Talking some nonsense about a place that's a haven for mutants, where someone, out of the kindness of their heart, has created some kind of utopia for us to be ourselves, to learn and develop..." Yeah, his intonation makes it clear what he thought of it at the time.

    "Except it turns out to be true. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop, but I can't find anything. And believe me, I've been looking." Now he looks up at the tree branches, the sky, his eyes for a moment tracking a bird that's just flying by. "You have every reason to hate me. And I would never blame you if you did, for the rest of your life. But I understand what it's like for you. To have regular meals, to not have someone looking over your shoulder the entire time. Not having to be afraid of punishment at someone's whim, not having to take your life in your own hands by walking around after lights out. The sheer weight of the knowledge that you're safe, and that tomorrow isn't going to be filled with danger and horror... It's a lot to take in."

Vi has posed:
Vi is still closing in on her first week at the school. She doesn't do anything to dissuade Samuel's approach as he moves closer. Just listens as he speaks. As he does, it's pretty clear there's a few places he definitely understands. The regular meals. Does he suspect just how much food she has horded in her room by now? Probably. People looking over her shoulder. Every hallway that she peers around the corner of looking for the guards she knows must be watching her, but from where?

Vi clears her throat. "I met the person whose names is on the school," Vi says. "He was really nice. Showed me... they have this room that... it can take you anywhere. Or, not take you. It becomes anywhere. There were mountains, and a trail and it was up in the clouds. And there were... these pretty plants, with colors and sweet smells to them," she says softly. One of her hands has come out of her pocket moving as if remembering holding the pretty plant she'd picked on the make believe trail. But it felt so real.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "Charles Xavier? That was a privilege, I've never met him myself." Although, to be fair, he wasn't exactly around when Bean joined the school. Or, more aptly, was rescued from a fate far worse. He nods when Vi describes the room, taking his hands out of his pockets and clasping them behind his back.

    And he doesn't want people to know just how much food he had hoarded himself, or how he's still preparing a bug-out bag for emergencies, still assiduously checked every morning and evening.

    "I know that room. I've been in there a few times for... various reasons. They run simulations for me there, situations that everyone finds normal but that... that I find hard to understand. It's easier talking to you than most other people around, because you don't constantly use references I just don't understand. You don't expect me to know a certain song, or want me to sing it out of the blue. Some of the people here come from hard lives, but many of them... they've known only what we would call luxury. And it's hard to talk to them."

Vi has posed:
Vi stirs a little bit, shifting from one foot to the other as if her bare feet are a little uncomfortable as she listens. "I heard they have some training programs that might help me understand what people are like. Something they made for someone named Laura," Vi says.

She digs in her pocket and pulls out a little clear vial about as big as her thumb, with an attached stopper in it. She pops the top off with a thumb and drinks down the contents, slipping the empty vial back into her pocket.

"It's worse than songs. Half the food in the kitchen I've never seen anything like it. There are fruits called oranges. Lara, the SHIELD lady, gave me orange juice and I didn't know it was a fruit. I thought she was just telling me the color," Vi says, shaking her head. "And you have to peel them. I tried biting into one and... ugh."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    There's a nod, and a half smile from Bean. "Half the food I've eaten in the last month I'd never even heard of. And there's so much of it! No waiting in the line for the commissary, no hoarding merits to requisition a snack..." Not that he had many of those in the end. And basic rations on a HYDRA base were not haute cuisine. But at least he had known about the existence of fruit. "You should eat fruit, it's good for you. And there's plenty, because most people don't want to eat any. It's just... utterly incomprehensible."

    But finally, he needs to ask, glancing down at Vi's bare feet. "I want to ask you something that might sound a bit strange. But wouldn't you be more comfortable wearing shoes, or boots? Your feet must be cold." And yes, he noted that vial being drunk. But that's a question for another time.

Vi has posed:
The shifting that she was doing had stopped at some point in the last few moments. Vi looks down at her feet. "I've never had shoes before," she says quietly. "They only give them to workers whose jobs need them. And I avoided the work crews," she says quietly.

She wiggles her toes a little bit. "I don't really need to fee the cold. Not when I'm... when I'm using one of my powers. My mutant powers," she says, still learning the words that people use for such things. "I wish I'd had this before. Or, I probably did but I didn't know how. We used to wrap our feet when it got cold," she says quietly. "I tried the shoes that Lara got me. They were strange to get used to," she says, frowning a little.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "Laura is probably the best person to speak to. I use the same training programs, I speak to her, we spar together... she's been a great help." Yup. Praise from Bean, and the subject of the praise is not around to hear it. Par for the course. "And remember, you're no longer in the camp. You can have shoes if you want them, so you don't have to keep using your powers just to be warm. And..." yeah, he's going to go there... "You can have more clothes as well, so you don't always have to wear the same things. Makes it easier to clean them more regularly, and it makes them last longer."

Vi has posed:
Vi looks down at her sweatshirt. Her face has the look of someone thinking. Recalling some snickers and comments about wrinkles she heard, but didn't really understand. Though Vi doesn't seem unintelligent, once she has enough of an idea to put the pieces together.

Vi looks back up. "How does one get clothes? I know where the kitchen is. Is there a clothing room too?" she asks, looking perhaps just a little bit awed. "They don't require ration cards there either do they?" she asks. "Or... money," she says, remembering what Samuel Guthrie taught her.

Samuel would know those in Echo were always dressed in some kind of cheap, canvas-like cloth. It was always easy to tell them apart from the guards. They also didn't have enough water to waste on washing very often, so they were generally fairly dirty, especially from the ash from the volcanoes in the area. The clothes Vi has on now must have felt like the clothes of royalty to Vi.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "Talk to the teachers, or the staff. They'll understand you need more than one outfit." Which is the way Bean had done it, before he had any money. On that topic... "You can earn money by doing chores, use that to buy clothes or food if you want extra." And he half smiles again, actually physically turning to look at Vi now, rather than just swivel his head around.

    "There's no ration cards here. There will never be ration cards, ever again. I'll let Mister Logan or Miss Grey talk to you about how money works, but basically if you have enough money to buy something, you are allowed to buy it. And you don't have to dress the same as everyone else. You can wear what you like."

Vi has posed:
Vi soaks all that in. She looks down at her clothing and runs a hand over the soft, warm sweatshirt, obviously liking it. "I've never had this many clothes before, or such nice ones," she says softly. Lara got her a few different items of clothing when she was in the safehouse.

Vi reaches up, running fingers through her hair. It often has a bit of a tousled look, grooming not having been something she's spent a lot of time on in her life. Though it's also somehow a bit becoming like that on her.

"I haven't gotten to speak to her yet. That's the woman with the red hair, yes?" she asks of Miss Grey. Vi thinks for a moment. "I should probably do some of these chores then." So she can fit in, though she doesn't voice that.

Vi swallows and looks over to Samuel. The words that come have a brief expression of reluctance before they are given. "Thank you. You've been really nice," she tells him. As if that makes it hard for her to hold onto her anger at him.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Nice? Bean? The mere thought makes him smile, and turn away again to look at the horizon, hands behind his back. "You've been more kind to me than I have any right to expect. Thank you."

Vi has posed:
The pair stand there, continuing to talk silently while the river rolls on, and the cool wind blows in, helping the leaves on their way towards the ground. They continue to talk, until the sun is on its way down towards the horizon and the shadows lengthen and then fade. Is it a friendship? Or the start of one? Only time will tell. There is so much there to overcome.