8/14/06 - Emma, Storm
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A relatively unshielded and extremely powerful mind glimmers on the horizon as the modified SR-71 cuts through minimal cloud-cover and wheels in towards a landing in the Great Salt Lake Desert. Fitful sleep and stolen sugar have refreshed it somewhat, though it is frazzled with ache and overexpenditure. It senses Xavier's approach, familiar and yet unfamiliar, and opens up to him like a fresh blossom, spiting the oven's heat of the Utah morning: Ororo Munroe, magnified and multi-faceted in telepathic hue. She reaches out to him, wordless hope to bathe the uncoiling tendrils of her thought in air and whispers, with a child's helplessness to undercut the woman's stubborn pride.
The reaction is a startled one, the quiet murmur of power on the horizon opening to surprised answer of that familiar touch: discipline peels away shields and the whisper of surface thoughts, tangling ribbons with that yearning reach. << Storm? >> Seated in the passenger side of the jet, Xavier sits straight-backed and startled to the touch of minds, closing a cautious grip on the unpracticed Ororo's. << What is the meaning of this? Are you alright? >>
Emma sleeps, curled into an miserable and undignified huddle on the ground behind the store next to Storm.
Storm answers Xavier with a tempest of reaction, the thin facade of her serenity shattering to rain over both their minds like tiny hailstones. She sits up, drawing her knees in towards her chest not far from where her body lies, and loops her arms over those knees, compressing into a human ball. << It is complicated. I am -- not myself. >> It is almost laughter that accompanies that, a shadow of hysteria that escapes in a rush of breath where she sits.
<< Be strong, Ororo. We're here. >> Serenity, artificial but a gift nonetheless, spills down the channel in an offer of strength; Xavier speaks into the microphone of his headset -- the jet banks, an approach calculated under the reach of nearby radar -- and finishes in silence, << We will land shortly. What has happened? Whose power is this? >>
Emma stirs and shifts to look over a dark shoulder at the increasing signs of hysteria her body is exhibiting. With a whuff, she pushes up and pulls a knee up to support her elbow as she attempts to comb out the unfamiliar hair. "What is it?" she asks gruffly.
Soothed, however artificially, Ororo closes her stolen eyes again. << Emma Frost's. >> The name is accompanied with image: the body she inhabits, the body she should. With feeling: hostility, mistrust, but not blame. << We were abducted. Our powers, our bodies -- transferred. Somehow. I don't know who. >> A flash of a room; black glass; the skin-crawling feel of Luc's hands. Aloud, she says, "Xavier."
Shock ripples down the connection, tickling the overlay of mind on mind. After the frisson of surprise, assessment: first the calculation of possible culprits; then the immediate recognition of-- << Is she with you? >> Xavier wonders, as the ground rushes smoothly up to meet the low slide of jet. << Emma. >>
The name provokes an instinctual effort to cast out her accustomed powers, an effort that flounders against it's lack. In its place are increased senses, hyper-acute to moisture and wind patterns, such as they are in the desert. Emma ruthlessly drives back her responses, the ones that mirror Ororo's and those that are unique to a person used to sharing the world with a hundred minds a day. "You are in contact," she observes flatly.
Ororo nods. The movement of her head suffices to answer Emma; for Xavier, she couples it with a thread of thought. << Yes. She is right next to me. >>
<< In your body. >> A statement of the obvious, and yet it bears repetition, the reality frayed at the edges by the underpinnings of incredulity. << It must be Sinister. I can think of nobody else who would have such technology or such -- curiosity. >>
The jet dips below cloud cover, the eerie quiet of it's approach broken by the flap of signs and the roll of tumbleweed. Emma holds her hands over her ears and pushes clumsily up, keeping hard eyes, so familiar to those approaching, on the machine.
<< We have remained together since we escaped the facility. From ... Sinister, then. >> The name is a capsule for incredulity itself; Ororo clambers to her feet, graceless and awkward in a graceful body, and sighs. << I don't know the next step, Professor -- >> and beneath that whispers, << Charles, >> and something even quieter says, << Father, >> and she licks her lips as she raises her chin, baring the fair column of her sun-scorched throat as she peers up at the jet (their jet, /her/ jet). << -- and I have never felt so far from home. >>
Comfort laps gently back, answering to all three layers of name; love, residual relief, and settling reassurance: communication the way only telepaths can, meaning knitted with meaning in a chord of harmony. << You will be home soon, >> Xavier assures, before amending with a light, wry voice, << That is to say, your body will. We will find a way for your mind. Reassure Emma if you will. The divine Miss Frost will need to learn to cooperate if we are to resolve this situation. >>
She will indeed. The contrast is almost hard to fathom. The slender blonde anticipating arrival, generating waves of hope and trust along with anger. The willowy African priestess, alternatively, resentful and afraid (so very afraid) of too many things to name, huddled and defensive.
<< Reassure her /how/? >> Ororo replies with fields of blankness, bristling as they overlap on each other. << She doesn't trust us. I wouldn't either in her place. After all she's done to us and ours-- >> She lets that hang and shakes her head slightly, stolen hair whipping in a wind not of her own making. Nevertheless, she opens a channel to speak into Emma's mind, sharing the touch of hope if not of trust. << We will be restored. The Professor will find a way, I'm sure of it. >>
<< One way or another, >> Xavier says, spilling across that opened channel with a side note of apology to Ororo. With proximity comes growing strength, clarity shaped with the discipline of a lifetime's restraint, and the Professor nods to the pilot's sidelong glance with another murmured word in the third, questioning mind. << If you will not trust our intentions towards you, Emma, at least trust our intentions towards Ororo. If we are to restore her, we must restore you. >>
<< Save it, Xavier. You can just as easily release me into the astral plane and return your precious Ororo to her husk, >> Emma snaps in reply to both of them, and above them, the clouds pick up speed and start to darken. << You have no assurance you can give me. >>
"Oh, don't be an idiot," Ororo snaps aloud, slanting a sudden glare upon the other woman (upon herself). << You are spitting in your own eye, Emma Frost. >>
<< Is that what you would do, Emma? >> Xavier asks between the two women, even as the jet sweeps down to a slow hover above empty space and begins to descend. Wind whips wild around the area, dust pitched up in a whirling dance.
<< There are few who deserve /that/ fate, >> Emma replies sullenly, glaring at her companion out of the corner of her eye.
Ororo stands silent and waits for the jet to land, her features a mask of ire: a statue in sunburned porcelain and windswept gold. << After what she and hers did to Jean, small wonder she expects dire retribution of us. >>
<< But she does not answer the question, >> Xavier points out while the jet touches down, door sliding open a few seconds later as the pilot reels through the final checks. The Professor reaches to unlock the safety harness binding the chair in place before wheeling himself towards that long and yawning ramp.
Anger is bound by iron will and forced to submit, the ice-gouged tension plain in mental and physical scape. Her teeth, Storm's teeth, grind with dangerous pressure. << And I /will/ not. Me and mine, my dear Ororo? Me and mine don't hide behind a facade of self-righteous hypocrisy. If your precious Jean wasn't willing to get her feathers singed, she should have staid away from Hell's fires. Excuse me. I suddenly remember I get air sick. >> She moves as if to leave.
Ororo reaches out to snag her own arm in one hand, fair fingers pressing into the dark skin just beneath her shoulder. "Where the hell do you think you're going?" she snaps. << In /my/ body. With /my/ powers. What on earth do you think you'll do? >>
Irony precedes Xavier's appearance at the top of the gangplank, tuned privately to Emma's mind. << Do you truly wish to claim innocence in the matter of /hypocrisy/, White Queen, self-righteous or no? >> Aloud, the familiar, rich baritone calls in summons over the whine and whirl of engine-thrown noise. "This is a discussion best suited for a later time, when we are far away from the people who are no doubt pursuing you. Utah is enemy territory. A tactical retreat seems in order."
Emma spins and breaks the contact on her shoulder, falling immediately into a defensive fighting stance. Charles' projected thought tumbles her off balance and she glares at the figure enthroned above them. << No, I don't. But then, I've never claimed to be anything else, >> she snarls. Storm is considered and dismissed, but she turns on heel and strides toward the jet.
Behind Emma, hands that were once hers form fists, tight at the body's sides. Ororo's nostrils flare as she raises her head. But she follows after on stalking steps bare instants after. Her mental growl mutters, a tigrish murmur from the shadowed depths of tall grass: << Bitch. >>
<< One we must work with, if we are to resolve this ... conundrum, >> Xavier sighs privately with a stitch of perplexity binding together fragments of thought. Curious, to be aware of the wrong mind in the wrong bodies; the wheelchair backing away to give the women more room up the ramp, the man in it watching with guarded wonder while physical senses and mutant power contradict each other. "There is water inside," he calls, "and I believe the medkit should be able to provide something for the burns."
Normally, Storm should be making her way to the front of hte plane, to settle into one of the pilot's seats. Normally. Now, her body hesitates inside the refitted jet, eyes widening in something like surprise as they flit across the interior, then closing before she moves to the closest of seats and drops wearily into it, ignoring the offer of water and her body's desire for it.
Emma's body, in contrast, starts to drift by force perhaps of habit towards the front and those seated there -- but she redirects soon enough. The water bottle she treats as a far more urgent acquisition than the aloe vera; the idea of applying the slimy stuff to her skin is unpleasant, regardless of how useful it might be, but the water soothes a parched throat and tongue as she sinks gracefully into a seat, across the aisle from the one that houses what used to be her body. Ororo sighs gratefully after she lowers the plastic bottle from her lips and lets her head tip back against the seat. With her eyes closed, she can almost -- /almost/ -- pretend that her body is her own ... but the hum of mental and emotional activity in the jet destroys the illusion before it has the chance to form.
The ramp closes; the jet takes off, answering to some private signal of Xavier's, the whirlwind of its ascension muted out and silenced in the quiet of the plane's interior. White, electric light makes artificial day out of the night, picking out in painful relief the redness of sunburnt skin and the discomfort of Emma's body.
Professor Xavier follows the two women to the rear compartment, the changeable eyes painted ghostly green by the undertones of his suit. "Drink something," he suggests to Storm's body, marking the weariness with mind and gaze. "It will help with your fatigue. --How are your shields holding?" That for the dislodged mistress of the same. Where the physical hand avoids burns, the mental one plays proxy, folding in a cautious mimicry of sensation over the slim, flushed fingers. << Do you need help? >>
Emma purses her lips (thinner, wider, drier than her own) and returns his look with defiance, struggling to reclaim and distinguish her mental makeup from the quicksand of the physical morass. She reaches for a bottle and cracks it open, turning too far, too fast and sending the cap skittering across the floor. "Shields? She has no shields," she answers for Storm, sneering only slightly. "I would suggest you secure a telepathic dampening device for her."
<< I know how not to speak. I have not figured out how not to hear. >> Irritation flickers over the sand-blown mindscape, frustration and aggravation together: weariness accompanies them in a surge. Storm opens her eyes again to glare at her body, while silently she turns her hand over and into the clasp of illusory fingers.
The tickle of surprise barely audible to Storm's borrowed powers is absent on Xavier's face, turned in grave acknowledgment to Emma. "It is an idea," he grants. "It remains to be seen how long you must continue like this before we can find a solution to switch you back. I presume you failed to contact your people?" While the baritone curls and spends itself, silence extends like a gift to buoy Ororo's battered mind: foundations shored; walls raised. << A temporary solution, but it must do for now. >>
Emma sulks, drawing in on herself physically and mentally. She slides the shoes on her feet off and pulls them up to the seat, grimacing at the foreign feel of material on skin that hasn't been as carefully and consistently pedicured. "No. They..." The truth hardly need be spoken, but she speaks it anyways. "They did not believe me. Which is why I spoke for her when we called."
Silence pours into the desert like rainfall, and Ororo thrives under its touch, relief's breath hissing past her lips as her eyes close into a stolen moment of still darkness. << Thank you. >> Her lashes lift over her eyes as she draws herself back to this and now, uncommon warmth pooling in the blue gaze that rests briefly on Charles's profile as he speaks to Emma. "Telepathic dampening device?" The question repeats itself silently to Xavier, echoing in a purple ripple.
Xavier disclaims knowledge, grim concern underpinning ignorance. << While I find it highly unlikely that Emma Frost, of all people, would willingly distribute a device that would render /her/ powers null and void-- >> Nonetheless. His gaze returns to Emma's presence behind Storm's eyes, laboring despite itself to reconcile the familiar with the alien trespasser that inhabits it.
"Yes. I... came into possession," images of Erik flicker to life, colored by old affection and new fear, "of a prototype the day before we were taken." Alarm flares and obliterates her unconscious mental projections. "What day is it? How long have we been gone?" she asks urgently, straightening and leaning forward.
Purple confirmation. Ororo blinks. << And yet, >> she says to Charles, silent voice -- her own; that at least, her own -- as dry as dunes. << Magneto. >>
<< Even Erik-- >> Xavier begins, only to lapse into silence on that front. Instead, more pragmatic, he determines, << We must have Forge study this prototype and determine how significant the damage will be. >> "The date is the fourteenth," he says aloud, turning his wheelchair down the long body of the plane. "It has just become Sunday, in fact. Jean grew concerned and filed a missing person's report with Detective Rossi for you, Ororo. How your people are reacting to your absence, Emma, I cannot say."
"Since Wednesday... /shit/." There is a concentration of effort, as if she would launch herself out of the chair, and whither from there, who knows? Certainly not out of the plane, as it has by now lifted up and was climbing back to its cruising altitude. The mention of the venerable detective checks her progress and earns her counterpart in /her/ stolen body a brightly quizzical look. O rly? "How fast can you return us, Xavier?"
Ya rly. Ororo steers Emma's features; they take on a pained expression. "Missing person," she says, audibly disgruntled. She eyes Emma sharply. "I'm still a missing person," she says. "I can't go around telling people--" She breaks off.
"Three hours to return to the mansion," Xavier says with composure, carefully ignoring the exchange between women. He desires no familiarity with either woman's relationship with Det. Rossi, kthx. "We should examine you both and try to find a solution immediately. If we can somehow transfer you back to your bodies, our problem is solved. However, in the event that we cannot, that long-term investigation is required--"
Emma pfts and settles back. "In the event that long-term investigation is required, /she/ will just have to learn mental discipline," she says ominously, turning away and curling her hand under her chin.
Ororo glares at Emma for a moment of wordless fury, bitten back by the pressure of teeth against teeth. Then she levers her gaze away to look back at her benefactor. "Do you have any idea where to begin?"
Hypocrite or no, Xavier does not lie. "No," he says mildly, turning a reproving gaze to Emma. "But that does not mean I cannot find one. For both your sakes, it may be best to keep this situation as secret as possible. I can assist Ororo with her shields, but if it comes to it, Emma, you may have something to learn in the art of self-control." The wheelchair trundles down to the far end of the plane, then whines as it is turned for his glance back. "And civility."
Emma rolls her eyes and dons a simpering sneer. "The longer I stay away, the less likely that it is this /can/ be kept secret. I'm not exactly one of your sheltered select, Xavier. I have obligations and responsibilities. Some of which you might even /wish/ me to see through."
"I will hardly be inconspicuous under my own roof in this guise, either," Ororo points out, wrinkling her nose. The expression on Emma's face (her face) is kind of unsettling.
The Professor pushes away the disconcerting recognition of both those expression on the wrong faces, and inclines his head to the women. "Indeed," he says crisply. "And if it transpires that we cannot find a quick solution, it may be in our best interests to attempt the charade. Needless to say, it will be impossible to hide the situation from telepaths, but from others--" An eyebrow arches at Emma.
"Attempt the charade? /What/ charade?" Emma asks, finally catching on to the seriousness of his intentions. "You can't /possibly/ mean what I think you are saying."
Ororo turns a lip-bitten look upon Charles, not bothering to disguise the awakening stir of fear in her gut. << To walk into that place, >> she says silently, to him alone. << After what it did to my best friend. And if I /fail/? >> Behind that doubt, more doubts awaken, nibbling and biting at Ororo's much-raggled serenity of spirit: she offers one more. << Becoming the guise I wear, doing her dirty work ...? >> But aloud she chooses a show of confidence rather than one of frailty. She says, "I think he does. Darling." The word tastes unfamiliar on her tongue, no matter how right it sounds in the voice that speaks it.
Strength answers Ororo, a lie (or truth? Who knows?) as certain as any of Xavier's proclamations. << You will never be other than who you are, no matter what face you wear. We will be here, >> he tells her, << and you will not be going in alone, as Jean did. There may be good to be done there. X-ID slithers through the Hellfire Club's hands. >> "There is always the alternative," he says, with limpid courtesy. "We can inform your counterpart, Mr. Shaw, of what has transpired -- of your loss of telepathy -- and you can cast yourself on his charity and benevolence to serve as your protector."
Fear and silent rage slip cold fingers around her heart and constricts, and Emma leans forward, pressing the heel of her palm over her chest. She squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head. "No." A pause, and then, "Please, no." There's no arrogance left in tone, mental or audible.
Curiosity awakens in the face of this sudden reality of vulnerability; Ororo cants her head. She is bolstered by Xavier's strength, << Not alone, >> coming as answer bound up in restored composure; she nonetheless responds to the glimmer of fear with an answering tremor of anxiety, flitting through her mindscape. Whatever else she might believe of Emma Frost, the woman is no coward. "Then, if we cannot find an immediate solution," she says firmly, "... charades it is."
In silence Xavier traps the fear, a little flutter of it snipped neatly out from its fellows and presented like a stolen butterfly to Ororo's new awareness. << /You/ are never alone, >> he says, that boundless compassion spilled for the newly blinded Emma. << She could have been a very different person, if I had found her before Sebastian Shaw had. >> Rare regrets. They flap ghostly wings before dissolving like old parchment. "We will find away," he tells Emma, the wheelchair bringing him close enough for a hand to touch benediction on that silver head. The baritone lapses into light irony. "You may doubt my motives, but trust in my hypocrisy, if nothing else. A convincing saint must act like one, after all."
Mustn't show weakness, mustn't be vulnerable... Emma soaks up a moment's contact before inhaling and pushing to her feet to sweep past the seated pair and move farther down the aisle, grabbing for another water bottle to excuse her movements. "You are no saint, Xavier," she counters, capitulating with the words.
Storm has no answer for Xavier's deep wellspring of compassion; her own generosity of spirit is stunted and reluctant by comparison, in this instance leashed by loyalty and love for another. She eyes Emma's back as she strides away (her own back; how /strange/, to see her own back -- an errant thought marks her buttocks as, at least, acceptable). << If you say so. >>
"No," Xavier tells the one, << Yes, >> he says to the other, and does something technical and orthodox to a panel in the wall before turning his chair towards the cockpit. "Rest for now," he suggests, in that clean, clipped voice that is accustomed to being heard and obeyed, denying even the possibility of debate. "There are still hours to go before we reach the school. Plans can wait until you are both clear-headed and we know where we stand."
Ororo settles back in the seat and lets her eyes drift closed, obedient in her exhaustion. With Xavier's assistance her mind is cradled in precious silence; for the first time in more than two decades, she is wholly oblivious to the air currents and weather patterns through which the jet skims. It is stolen, false peace; in it, she drifts and dozes the rest of the way home.
[Log ends]
A call for help to Xavier House brings out the master himself, and an unusual pick-up is made in the wilds of Utah. Sinister makes for strange bedfellows.
A relatively unshielded and extremely powerful mind glimmers on the horizon as the modified SR-71 cuts through minimal cloud-cover and wheels in towards a landing in the Great Salt Lake Desert. Fitful sleep and stolen sugar have refreshed it somewhat, though it is frazzled with ache and overexpenditure. It senses Xavier's approach, familiar and yet unfamiliar, and opens up to him like a fresh blossom, spiting the oven's heat of the Utah morning: Ororo Munroe, magnified and multi-faceted in telepathic hue. She reaches out to him, wordless hope to bathe the uncoiling tendrils of her thought in air and whispers, with a child's helplessness to undercut the woman's stubborn pride.
The reaction is a startled one, the quiet murmur of power on the horizon opening to surprised answer of that familiar touch: discipline peels away shields and the whisper of surface thoughts, tangling ribbons with that yearning reach. << Storm? >> Seated in the passenger side of the jet, Xavier sits straight-backed and startled to the touch of minds, closing a cautious grip on the unpracticed Ororo's. << What is the meaning of this? Are you alright? >>
Emma sleeps, curled into an miserable and undignified huddle on the ground behind the store next to Storm.
Storm answers Xavier with a tempest of reaction, the thin facade of her serenity shattering to rain over both their minds like tiny hailstones. She sits up, drawing her knees in towards her chest not far from where her body lies, and loops her arms over those knees, compressing into a human ball. << It is complicated. I am -- not myself. >> It is almost laughter that accompanies that, a shadow of hysteria that escapes in a rush of breath where she sits.
<< Be strong, Ororo. We're here. >> Serenity, artificial but a gift nonetheless, spills down the channel in an offer of strength; Xavier speaks into the microphone of his headset -- the jet banks, an approach calculated under the reach of nearby radar -- and finishes in silence, << We will land shortly. What has happened? Whose power is this? >>
Emma stirs and shifts to look over a dark shoulder at the increasing signs of hysteria her body is exhibiting. With a whuff, she pushes up and pulls a knee up to support her elbow as she attempts to comb out the unfamiliar hair. "What is it?" she asks gruffly.
Soothed, however artificially, Ororo closes her stolen eyes again. << Emma Frost's. >> The name is accompanied with image: the body she inhabits, the body she should. With feeling: hostility, mistrust, but not blame. << We were abducted. Our powers, our bodies -- transferred. Somehow. I don't know who. >> A flash of a room; black glass; the skin-crawling feel of Luc's hands. Aloud, she says, "Xavier."
Shock ripples down the connection, tickling the overlay of mind on mind. After the frisson of surprise, assessment: first the calculation of possible culprits; then the immediate recognition of-- << Is she with you? >> Xavier wonders, as the ground rushes smoothly up to meet the low slide of jet. << Emma. >>
The name provokes an instinctual effort to cast out her accustomed powers, an effort that flounders against it's lack. In its place are increased senses, hyper-acute to moisture and wind patterns, such as they are in the desert. Emma ruthlessly drives back her responses, the ones that mirror Ororo's and those that are unique to a person used to sharing the world with a hundred minds a day. "You are in contact," she observes flatly.
Ororo nods. The movement of her head suffices to answer Emma; for Xavier, she couples it with a thread of thought. << Yes. She is right next to me. >>
<< In your body. >> A statement of the obvious, and yet it bears repetition, the reality frayed at the edges by the underpinnings of incredulity. << It must be Sinister. I can think of nobody else who would have such technology or such -- curiosity. >>
The jet dips below cloud cover, the eerie quiet of it's approach broken by the flap of signs and the roll of tumbleweed. Emma holds her hands over her ears and pushes clumsily up, keeping hard eyes, so familiar to those approaching, on the machine.
<< We have remained together since we escaped the facility. From ... Sinister, then. >> The name is a capsule for incredulity itself; Ororo clambers to her feet, graceless and awkward in a graceful body, and sighs. << I don't know the next step, Professor -- >> and beneath that whispers, << Charles, >> and something even quieter says, << Father, >> and she licks her lips as she raises her chin, baring the fair column of her sun-scorched throat as she peers up at the jet (their jet, /her/ jet). << -- and I have never felt so far from home. >>
Comfort laps gently back, answering to all three layers of name; love, residual relief, and settling reassurance: communication the way only telepaths can, meaning knitted with meaning in a chord of harmony. << You will be home soon, >> Xavier assures, before amending with a light, wry voice, << That is to say, your body will. We will find a way for your mind. Reassure Emma if you will. The divine Miss Frost will need to learn to cooperate if we are to resolve this situation. >>
She will indeed. The contrast is almost hard to fathom. The slender blonde anticipating arrival, generating waves of hope and trust along with anger. The willowy African priestess, alternatively, resentful and afraid (so very afraid) of too many things to name, huddled and defensive.
<< Reassure her /how/? >> Ororo replies with fields of blankness, bristling as they overlap on each other. << She doesn't trust us. I wouldn't either in her place. After all she's done to us and ours-- >> She lets that hang and shakes her head slightly, stolen hair whipping in a wind not of her own making. Nevertheless, she opens a channel to speak into Emma's mind, sharing the touch of hope if not of trust. << We will be restored. The Professor will find a way, I'm sure of it. >>
<< One way or another, >> Xavier says, spilling across that opened channel with a side note of apology to Ororo. With proximity comes growing strength, clarity shaped with the discipline of a lifetime's restraint, and the Professor nods to the pilot's sidelong glance with another murmured word in the third, questioning mind. << If you will not trust our intentions towards you, Emma, at least trust our intentions towards Ororo. If we are to restore her, we must restore you. >>
<< Save it, Xavier. You can just as easily release me into the astral plane and return your precious Ororo to her husk, >> Emma snaps in reply to both of them, and above them, the clouds pick up speed and start to darken. << You have no assurance you can give me. >>
"Oh, don't be an idiot," Ororo snaps aloud, slanting a sudden glare upon the other woman (upon herself). << You are spitting in your own eye, Emma Frost. >>
<< Is that what you would do, Emma? >> Xavier asks between the two women, even as the jet sweeps down to a slow hover above empty space and begins to descend. Wind whips wild around the area, dust pitched up in a whirling dance.
<< There are few who deserve /that/ fate, >> Emma replies sullenly, glaring at her companion out of the corner of her eye.
Ororo stands silent and waits for the jet to land, her features a mask of ire: a statue in sunburned porcelain and windswept gold. << After what she and hers did to Jean, small wonder she expects dire retribution of us. >>
<< But she does not answer the question, >> Xavier points out while the jet touches down, door sliding open a few seconds later as the pilot reels through the final checks. The Professor reaches to unlock the safety harness binding the chair in place before wheeling himself towards that long and yawning ramp.
Anger is bound by iron will and forced to submit, the ice-gouged tension plain in mental and physical scape. Her teeth, Storm's teeth, grind with dangerous pressure. << And I /will/ not. Me and mine, my dear Ororo? Me and mine don't hide behind a facade of self-righteous hypocrisy. If your precious Jean wasn't willing to get her feathers singed, she should have staid away from Hell's fires. Excuse me. I suddenly remember I get air sick. >> She moves as if to leave.
Ororo reaches out to snag her own arm in one hand, fair fingers pressing into the dark skin just beneath her shoulder. "Where the hell do you think you're going?" she snaps. << In /my/ body. With /my/ powers. What on earth do you think you'll do? >>
Irony precedes Xavier's appearance at the top of the gangplank, tuned privately to Emma's mind. << Do you truly wish to claim innocence in the matter of /hypocrisy/, White Queen, self-righteous or no? >> Aloud, the familiar, rich baritone calls in summons over the whine and whirl of engine-thrown noise. "This is a discussion best suited for a later time, when we are far away from the people who are no doubt pursuing you. Utah is enemy territory. A tactical retreat seems in order."
Emma spins and breaks the contact on her shoulder, falling immediately into a defensive fighting stance. Charles' projected thought tumbles her off balance and she glares at the figure enthroned above them. << No, I don't. But then, I've never claimed to be anything else, >> she snarls. Storm is considered and dismissed, but she turns on heel and strides toward the jet.
Behind Emma, hands that were once hers form fists, tight at the body's sides. Ororo's nostrils flare as she raises her head. But she follows after on stalking steps bare instants after. Her mental growl mutters, a tigrish murmur from the shadowed depths of tall grass: << Bitch. >>
<< One we must work with, if we are to resolve this ... conundrum, >> Xavier sighs privately with a stitch of perplexity binding together fragments of thought. Curious, to be aware of the wrong mind in the wrong bodies; the wheelchair backing away to give the women more room up the ramp, the man in it watching with guarded wonder while physical senses and mutant power contradict each other. "There is water inside," he calls, "and I believe the medkit should be able to provide something for the burns."
Normally, Storm should be making her way to the front of hte plane, to settle into one of the pilot's seats. Normally. Now, her body hesitates inside the refitted jet, eyes widening in something like surprise as they flit across the interior, then closing before she moves to the closest of seats and drops wearily into it, ignoring the offer of water and her body's desire for it.
Emma's body, in contrast, starts to drift by force perhaps of habit towards the front and those seated there -- but she redirects soon enough. The water bottle she treats as a far more urgent acquisition than the aloe vera; the idea of applying the slimy stuff to her skin is unpleasant, regardless of how useful it might be, but the water soothes a parched throat and tongue as she sinks gracefully into a seat, across the aisle from the one that houses what used to be her body. Ororo sighs gratefully after she lowers the plastic bottle from her lips and lets her head tip back against the seat. With her eyes closed, she can almost -- /almost/ -- pretend that her body is her own ... but the hum of mental and emotional activity in the jet destroys the illusion before it has the chance to form.
The ramp closes; the jet takes off, answering to some private signal of Xavier's, the whirlwind of its ascension muted out and silenced in the quiet of the plane's interior. White, electric light makes artificial day out of the night, picking out in painful relief the redness of sunburnt skin and the discomfort of Emma's body.
Professor Xavier follows the two women to the rear compartment, the changeable eyes painted ghostly green by the undertones of his suit. "Drink something," he suggests to Storm's body, marking the weariness with mind and gaze. "It will help with your fatigue. --How are your shields holding?" That for the dislodged mistress of the same. Where the physical hand avoids burns, the mental one plays proxy, folding in a cautious mimicry of sensation over the slim, flushed fingers. << Do you need help? >>
Emma purses her lips (thinner, wider, drier than her own) and returns his look with defiance, struggling to reclaim and distinguish her mental makeup from the quicksand of the physical morass. She reaches for a bottle and cracks it open, turning too far, too fast and sending the cap skittering across the floor. "Shields? She has no shields," she answers for Storm, sneering only slightly. "I would suggest you secure a telepathic dampening device for her."
<< I know how not to speak. I have not figured out how not to hear. >> Irritation flickers over the sand-blown mindscape, frustration and aggravation together: weariness accompanies them in a surge. Storm opens her eyes again to glare at her body, while silently she turns her hand over and into the clasp of illusory fingers.
The tickle of surprise barely audible to Storm's borrowed powers is absent on Xavier's face, turned in grave acknowledgment to Emma. "It is an idea," he grants. "It remains to be seen how long you must continue like this before we can find a solution to switch you back. I presume you failed to contact your people?" While the baritone curls and spends itself, silence extends like a gift to buoy Ororo's battered mind: foundations shored; walls raised. << A temporary solution, but it must do for now. >>
Emma sulks, drawing in on herself physically and mentally. She slides the shoes on her feet off and pulls them up to the seat, grimacing at the foreign feel of material on skin that hasn't been as carefully and consistently pedicured. "No. They..." The truth hardly need be spoken, but she speaks it anyways. "They did not believe me. Which is why I spoke for her when we called."
Silence pours into the desert like rainfall, and Ororo thrives under its touch, relief's breath hissing past her lips as her eyes close into a stolen moment of still darkness. << Thank you. >> Her lashes lift over her eyes as she draws herself back to this and now, uncommon warmth pooling in the blue gaze that rests briefly on Charles's profile as he speaks to Emma. "Telepathic dampening device?" The question repeats itself silently to Xavier, echoing in a purple ripple.
Xavier disclaims knowledge, grim concern underpinning ignorance. << While I find it highly unlikely that Emma Frost, of all people, would willingly distribute a device that would render /her/ powers null and void-- >> Nonetheless. His gaze returns to Emma's presence behind Storm's eyes, laboring despite itself to reconcile the familiar with the alien trespasser that inhabits it.
"Yes. I... came into possession," images of Erik flicker to life, colored by old affection and new fear, "of a prototype the day before we were taken." Alarm flares and obliterates her unconscious mental projections. "What day is it? How long have we been gone?" she asks urgently, straightening and leaning forward.
Purple confirmation. Ororo blinks. << And yet, >> she says to Charles, silent voice -- her own; that at least, her own -- as dry as dunes. << Magneto. >>
<< Even Erik-- >> Xavier begins, only to lapse into silence on that front. Instead, more pragmatic, he determines, << We must have Forge study this prototype and determine how significant the damage will be. >> "The date is the fourteenth," he says aloud, turning his wheelchair down the long body of the plane. "It has just become Sunday, in fact. Jean grew concerned and filed a missing person's report with Detective Rossi for you, Ororo. How your people are reacting to your absence, Emma, I cannot say."
"Since Wednesday... /shit/." There is a concentration of effort, as if she would launch herself out of the chair, and whither from there, who knows? Certainly not out of the plane, as it has by now lifted up and was climbing back to its cruising altitude. The mention of the venerable detective checks her progress and earns her counterpart in /her/ stolen body a brightly quizzical look. O rly? "How fast can you return us, Xavier?"
Ya rly. Ororo steers Emma's features; they take on a pained expression. "Missing person," she says, audibly disgruntled. She eyes Emma sharply. "I'm still a missing person," she says. "I can't go around telling people--" She breaks off.
"Three hours to return to the mansion," Xavier says with composure, carefully ignoring the exchange between women. He desires no familiarity with either woman's relationship with Det. Rossi, kthx. "We should examine you both and try to find a solution immediately. If we can somehow transfer you back to your bodies, our problem is solved. However, in the event that we cannot, that long-term investigation is required--"
Emma pfts and settles back. "In the event that long-term investigation is required, /she/ will just have to learn mental discipline," she says ominously, turning away and curling her hand under her chin.
Ororo glares at Emma for a moment of wordless fury, bitten back by the pressure of teeth against teeth. Then she levers her gaze away to look back at her benefactor. "Do you have any idea where to begin?"
Hypocrite or no, Xavier does not lie. "No," he says mildly, turning a reproving gaze to Emma. "But that does not mean I cannot find one. For both your sakes, it may be best to keep this situation as secret as possible. I can assist Ororo with her shields, but if it comes to it, Emma, you may have something to learn in the art of self-control." The wheelchair trundles down to the far end of the plane, then whines as it is turned for his glance back. "And civility."
Emma rolls her eyes and dons a simpering sneer. "The longer I stay away, the less likely that it is this /can/ be kept secret. I'm not exactly one of your sheltered select, Xavier. I have obligations and responsibilities. Some of which you might even /wish/ me to see through."
"I will hardly be inconspicuous under my own roof in this guise, either," Ororo points out, wrinkling her nose. The expression on Emma's face (her face) is kind of unsettling.
The Professor pushes away the disconcerting recognition of both those expression on the wrong faces, and inclines his head to the women. "Indeed," he says crisply. "And if it transpires that we cannot find a quick solution, it may be in our best interests to attempt the charade. Needless to say, it will be impossible to hide the situation from telepaths, but from others--" An eyebrow arches at Emma.
"Attempt the charade? /What/ charade?" Emma asks, finally catching on to the seriousness of his intentions. "You can't /possibly/ mean what I think you are saying."
Ororo turns a lip-bitten look upon Charles, not bothering to disguise the awakening stir of fear in her gut. << To walk into that place, >> she says silently, to him alone. << After what it did to my best friend. And if I /fail/? >> Behind that doubt, more doubts awaken, nibbling and biting at Ororo's much-raggled serenity of spirit: she offers one more. << Becoming the guise I wear, doing her dirty work ...? >> But aloud she chooses a show of confidence rather than one of frailty. She says, "I think he does. Darling." The word tastes unfamiliar on her tongue, no matter how right it sounds in the voice that speaks it.
Strength answers Ororo, a lie (or truth? Who knows?) as certain as any of Xavier's proclamations. << You will never be other than who you are, no matter what face you wear. We will be here, >> he tells her, << and you will not be going in alone, as Jean did. There may be good to be done there. X-ID slithers through the Hellfire Club's hands. >> "There is always the alternative," he says, with limpid courtesy. "We can inform your counterpart, Mr. Shaw, of what has transpired -- of your loss of telepathy -- and you can cast yourself on his charity and benevolence to serve as your protector."
Fear and silent rage slip cold fingers around her heart and constricts, and Emma leans forward, pressing the heel of her palm over her chest. She squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head. "No." A pause, and then, "Please, no." There's no arrogance left in tone, mental or audible.
Curiosity awakens in the face of this sudden reality of vulnerability; Ororo cants her head. She is bolstered by Xavier's strength, << Not alone, >> coming as answer bound up in restored composure; she nonetheless responds to the glimmer of fear with an answering tremor of anxiety, flitting through her mindscape. Whatever else she might believe of Emma Frost, the woman is no coward. "Then, if we cannot find an immediate solution," she says firmly, "... charades it is."
In silence Xavier traps the fear, a little flutter of it snipped neatly out from its fellows and presented like a stolen butterfly to Ororo's new awareness. << /You/ are never alone, >> he says, that boundless compassion spilled for the newly blinded Emma. << She could have been a very different person, if I had found her before Sebastian Shaw had. >> Rare regrets. They flap ghostly wings before dissolving like old parchment. "We will find away," he tells Emma, the wheelchair bringing him close enough for a hand to touch benediction on that silver head. The baritone lapses into light irony. "You may doubt my motives, but trust in my hypocrisy, if nothing else. A convincing saint must act like one, after all."
Mustn't show weakness, mustn't be vulnerable... Emma soaks up a moment's contact before inhaling and pushing to her feet to sweep past the seated pair and move farther down the aisle, grabbing for another water bottle to excuse her movements. "You are no saint, Xavier," she counters, capitulating with the words.
Storm has no answer for Xavier's deep wellspring of compassion; her own generosity of spirit is stunted and reluctant by comparison, in this instance leashed by loyalty and love for another. She eyes Emma's back as she strides away (her own back; how /strange/, to see her own back -- an errant thought marks her buttocks as, at least, acceptable). << If you say so. >>
"No," Xavier tells the one, << Yes, >> he says to the other, and does something technical and orthodox to a panel in the wall before turning his chair towards the cockpit. "Rest for now," he suggests, in that clean, clipped voice that is accustomed to being heard and obeyed, denying even the possibility of debate. "There are still hours to go before we reach the school. Plans can wait until you are both clear-headed and we know where we stand."
Ororo settles back in the seat and lets her eyes drift closed, obedient in her exhaustion. With Xavier's assistance her mind is cradled in precious silence; for the first time in more than two decades, she is wholly oblivious to the air currents and weather patterns through which the jet skims. It is stolen, false peace; in it, she drifts and dozes the rest of the way home.
[Log ends]
A call for help to Xavier House brings out the master himself, and an unusual pick-up is made in the wilds of Utah. Sinister makes for strange bedfellows.