Act Your Age, Not Your Shoe Size! (AKA, Kid!Plot is Go!!)

[time_schizo]

Martini threw himself at the door once again, nails scratching along the metal as he scraped his fingers over them. No one would hear him. It was the middle of the night. Stryker had decided to punish him for destroying the camp in Africa, putting him in one beyond all other for him. Solitary confinement. His fingernails had been mostly ripped off

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[demon_screaming]

Esme's panic started the moment she opened her eyes. She couldn't see the sounds in the room. At all. Not a single trace of them. She sat up, panicking just slightly until she felt her wings move behind her. She sighed, visibly relaxing. At least those were still attached.

She stood and stretched them, noticing they didn't have their usual bit of tightness to them. Frowning a moment, she mentally felt around for the familiar feel of Emma in her mind.

Emma, she thought, running her fingers through her hair and trying to not let her panic show in her thoughts.. My sonokinesis is gone.

[icecoldwit]

Emma woke slowly, but feeling out Esme quickly. Calm down darling, she directed. Are you in your room?

She sat up, noting that Victor wasn't beside her, which made things a little easier. I'll come find you.

She pulled her clothes on, stepping into her shoes and then towards the door.

[demon_screaming]

Yes. Yuriko's gone. She just left. She looks different. Esme thought back as she stood. She was finally awake enough to notice what was going on, looking at her slightly chubby and significantly smaller hands.

Emma, something's very wrong. I'm... she paused, frowning as she hurried to the window to catch what little reflection she had. Holy hell, Emma. I'm a kid.

She didn't like this one bit.

[icecoldwit]

That made Emma stop where she was, a frown marring her face. What do you mean, 'a kid'? Esme was twenty, but sometimes, she was still a 'kid' to Emma. The little girl she couldn't help but feel maternal towards.

And then there were people who still called her kid. Emma wasn't that much older than her, but sometime, Esme could be utterly childish, or shockingly mature.

Don't panic. Stay calm, we'll figure this out. It didn't even occur to Emma that something might have happened to her. She still felt herself, her height hadn't altered, her clothes fit fine. Perhaps it was isolated.

But it would explain the low buzz of activity at the back of her head. She moved along the halls quickly, knocking on Esme's door softly. "Es, it's just me." And she turned the handle, expecting to just see her protege sitting there.

[demon_screaming]

I mean, physically, I'm pretty sure I'm ten years old, Esme thought, trying to keep her annoyance and her worry out of her thoughts. She didn't think to put up a block around her emotions at the very least. For starters, Emma'd call her on it. Second, all she could do was worry.

She was sitting on her bed, knees brought up to her chest and her wings tucked close. When Emma opened the door, she shrank slightly as though she were trying to hide the change.

"Hello."

[icecoldwit]

Emma was a touch stunned at seeing her, Esme had been sixteen by the time Emma found her, and a bit of a sarcastic little witch by the time. Now, she was a scared little girl -which really didn't sit right with Emma.

"Oh, darling." She moved to sit on the bed, not right beside Esme, just in case she wasn't in the mood for comfort, and sighed. "You're right, you look about ten. Maybe eleven." But her wings didn't look damaged, that meant that the sonokinesis was probably still developing.

She hadn't reached maturity for the X-Gene to activate. "It's probably nothing, Esme." Well, not nothing, but fixable enough. "I'm sure we'll fix it all soon."

[demon_screaming]

Esme didn't want Emma that far away. Her immediate reaction. while childish, just seemed to fit and she climbed into Emma's lap, throwing her arms around her mother-sisters neck. This was downright terrifying. She was downright terrified. She definitely wanted comfort, here.

"I hope so. I really really hope so." Esme finally looked Emma over, smiling slightly. "You look different, too. Still pretty. But different."

[icecoldwit]

Emma wrapped her arm carefully around Esme, smiling tightly. She looked different? Of course she knew she'd still be pretty -she'd better be. But what was different exactly.

"I don't feel it." Her powers were still there, which meant she probably wasn't younger by much, if at all. The youngest she could be would be twenty at average. With her body this height and build.

Then again, "Esme, show me what I look like." She opened her mind to Esme's more recent memories, specifically the current ones.

[demon_screaming]

Esme had no problem with that. She kept her eyes on Emma's face and thought about every detail she saw. Her hair length and color, everything she could think of. She wasn't sure if she felt Emma in there or not so she waited patiently.

"See? Told you. You're different." Esme grinned, showing she didn't mind the difference.

[icecoldwit]

Different? She was old. Well, older. At least a decade. Emma didn't like that at all.

Twenty six didn't feel old. Thirty six did. Thirty six meant she was pushing forty. She didn't like that at all. But she kept it away from Esme. "So I am. Lovely." So, Esme was around ten years younger. Emma was about ten years older.

This was curious. Perhaps it followed the same pattern for everyone. And as Emma opened her mind to touch on some of the others she picked out a few random subjects.

St John, with Esme on the brain as ever, was about eleven, possibly twelve. Oyama was in her teens, Rogue was probably in her pre-teens. Logan felt, well, young. Nicky felt older. Victor felt energised.

This was strange. And then Emma's mind rolled over the Worth siblings, and Radison, and Ashida. All normal. "Damn." Emma pulled back, raising an eyebrow at Esme. "It's chaos out there. I can't pick out any kind of pattern at all."

Although at least everyone seemed to maintain their mental age.

[demon_screaming]

"I don't think there is one. It's not like last time," Esme said as she shook her head, nose wrinkling slightly. Last time any sort of bullshit occurred, it seemed there was a rhyme and reason to it. The switches weren't random. Person A had switched with Person B and vice versa.

Esme carefully moved from Emma's lap to open her door and look out, frowning. It really was chaos out there. She stepped back inside and shut her door.

"What do we do now?" she asked, hands on her hips and eyes narrowed.

[icecoldwit]

Emma stood up, smoothing out her trousers. "You, stay put. John's coming to find you with his room-mate." And wow, if that wasn't a confusing boy; eight years old and completely able -if not controlled- to duplicate himself. "It will likely be better if you stick to here until the place quietens."

Emma was mostly worried about if Esme's sonokinesis came back, regardless of her age. If it re-emerged while this noise was going on, the girl would probably bring the whole compound down with a scream.

"I think I'll go see if Stryker has any clue what's going on." Basically through invading his annoyingly basic little mind. "And then see who else has suffered what."

There had better be no 'babies' in the camp.

[demon_screaming]

"Have fun with the flatscan," Esme said as she went back to her bed. She'd finally noticed her wings weren't as stiff as they used to be and she wanted to test a theory. When she was sure Emma was gone, she crouched slightly, stretched out her wings and launched herself in the air. She managed to flap from one bed to the other.

Should anyone come in, they'd find her doing this back and forth and laughing hysterically.