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| Daisychain of minds; Jean and Rachel | |
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| Topic Started: Jun 26 2012, 09:42 AM (535 Views) | |
| Jean | Jun 26 2012, 09:42 AM Post #1 |
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Telepathy, Telekinesis
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May 20th, evening after Brood breakout It was grasping at straws but their options were dwindling every moment. 'Risk our lives and minds to a machine, and an unknown alien machine at that,' Jean thought grimly to herself as she made her way through the halls of their makeshift in new home. Unconsciously, Jean reached out and patted the old stones of the temple as she passed by. The Brood queen and her slavish followers had nearly brought the roof caving in on their heads. Luckily, her daughter, a realization that still felt strange in her mind, and her boyfriend had kept the old place standing and stitched it back together. Hive minds and slavish followers; it all brought up too many unpleasant memories of years ago when she and Scott had been drugged, poisoned with a personality affecting drug that had twisted them slowly over a span of months. But eventually they had hooked all the students and their friends, those who hadn't fled from them, into a mental network. It had been a tool of control and domination then, but hopefully, this would help make up for that abuse of power and trust. "I think," Jean began when Rachel joined her, "it would best to join everyone's mind it mine, to begin with, and then we'll transfer the mental nexus over to Danger when Scott... uh, your father, and Sarah have Danger ready. I'm just not comfortable handing their minds over to a strange computer without making sure everything is going to be okay first." Jean sat cross-legged in a chair, trying to get comfortable, both physically and mentally. "Speak of okay, how's Franklin?" she asked innocently. |
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| Marvel Girl | Jun 26 2012, 11:44 PM Post #2 |
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Unregistered
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Rachel, as she had come to know her name, was from a future. Not the future, of that she was certain. Time was fluid thing, and the very act of moving through time, however she had managed it, had changed the game, perhaps irreparably. But that was alright. Change is what the future needed, the one she remembered, anyhow. But now, here, wherever here and whenever now was, there was a chance that, whatever the days of her future past would come to hold, she would not live to see it. Aliens, aliens of all things, had come to Earth, in not one form but two. Both sought the destruction of the native people, and both were cunning and ruthless. She came as soon as she was done speaking with Franklin. Franklin, the boy from the future, perhaps her only connection to that faded, foggy, and tumultuous time, had become her rock. The steady sturdiness that she held herself close to in all the stormy seas of revelation that had become apparent in the past two months. She loved him, he loved her, that much the both of them knew, but the whys of it, the hows, the whens, that remained muddied, distant, impossible to grasp. Soon. But first they had a world to save. That was familiar. In her time, she remembered vaguely her life as a leader. Times were darker, more desperate, and the world had become a grimmer place, far more fueled by the very hate and prejudice her father sought to bring to an end, but then it was all a cycle, or so the present crisis seemed to say. She had been exhilirated in Scott's office, watching him, with his stern brow and sterner words, tell them all that defeat was not an option, tell them all that to lose was to die, and, to everyone's grim realization, that to win could also be to die. But that, that was the ticket, the motivation to live and to live on, she saw that fire beyond the ruby pane that shielded his eyes. She remembered that fire from when she was a child. It only moved her closer to knowing that that staunch revelation in Hank's infirmary was more truth than fantasy. And then there was Jean. Her mother. The Phoenix. With every stark reality Scott presented to his team, she laid the velvet on. Not too thick, not enough to create some feigned sense of security, or to purport that all was well. But enough to dull the keening edge of Scott Summers' realism, his grave realities that everyone knew for truth, and to bring some small amount of workable peace to the worrying faces of those present. It was these two that had made her. She knew that, somewhere deep. She was leader, in her time, but she was forced to shoulder both sides of the coin. To be that realist and still maintain that reassurance. It had been a hard life, and, if the marks on her face were any indication, it was in balancing those two scales that she had failed. And that hurt. She wouldn't fail again. Not now, not ever. And in that she was a Summers. When one falls, it's just to learn how to get back up. Her head was still foggy and wandering, still reeling from that psychic backhand at the hands of the Brood Queen. She felt her in her mind still, as if a residue of chewing worms had been left behind. She'd been picking them away since the calm had settled in. Hive Minds. It wasn't entirely dissimilar from The Hound network, the web of enslaved mutant trackers, all hooked to the same mental frequency. A face regarded her from the future, from her past, cruel and smiling, that odd weapon in his hand always threatening to strike. She pushed the memory away. She stepped into the room, looking instinctively to the windows, which were now sealed from the outside, shuttered away. They were the proverbial bugs under the jar here, an irony if ever there was one. She rubbed at the cut on the side of her head, it was pulled shut by bandages, but it still stung. She held in a cough as she came to a stop, throwing herself tiredly over the back of an empty seat. "We definitely need to install some sort of cutoff..." She said in reply. She was none to fond of robots, never had been, never would be. When you made a living running from them, it made it hard to identify, no matter how benevolent or human they made themselves to be. Her trusting in this plan was a sign of just how much of a last resort it could be. "Can you take that much linkage? We could split it up if we had to and then join it to the 'bot's mindframe, would be less burden on you." She moved to sit sidelong in the seat and kicked her shoes off. "If you think it's okay, I mean." And then Franklin came up. "He's good... shaken, a little worried, but I think we all are. He's down with the others in the shelter. I think he'll do good keeping their minds off of the worst of it." She clicked her tongue. "Y'know, if the worst comes up and we all go down, I'd like ta let you know that despite all the crazy these past few weeks have been some of the best." |
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| Jean | Jun 27 2012, 06:21 AM Post #3 |
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Telepathy, Telekinesis
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Jean paused, then shook her head. "Thanks, but I don't think it would be a good idea. It would less of a burden but riskier too. There's a hundred and fifteen people in Utopia; splitting the load, around sixty minds a piece, means that we'll both be compromised. If she attacks before we're ready and at the worst possible moment, which is then they always seem to have a knack for, then the X-Men wouldn't have either of us." "And, if something goes wrong, you won't be burdened; you'll be able to fix things without having to worry about maintaining your own mental links. It'll be a stretch, but I can handle it." A stretch was an understatement; the buzz of being connected to over a hundred other minds simultaneously was going to be overwhelming, like being lost in an ocean of thoughts if she wasn't careful. But she needed to do this, had to do this, failure wasn't an option, it meant lives lost. When she had done this before, during the time known as ShadowX, it had only been about seventy minds, and it had aged her, whitening her hair and wrecking her health, even with Scott helping. However, that had happened after maintaining the mental network over months; this was only going to be a few days at most. She reached out and covered Rachel's hand with hers. "Don't worry. And if it is beyond me, I know you'll be there to take up the rest and make sure we won't lose them," she said and gave the girl a confident smile; confident that Rachel had never let them down and never would. As Jean let her thoughts relax in preparation of the task ahead, the topic turned to Franklin. Jean nodded as she took in what Rachel said. "Thank you," she said warmly, "but this is just the beginning. Always remember that, even in the darkest hours; hope for the light and you'll always see it. But," she added with a sidelong glance at Rachel, "don't waste your time. Every moment that passes is precious. It's easy, with lives like ours, to live from crisis to crisis and somehow, along the way, forget about actually living. For over ten years, Scott and I forgot to live." |
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| Marvel Girl | Jun 28 2012, 12:51 PM Post #4 |
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Unregistered
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Rachel nodded at her mother's affirmation of her ability and then nodded at her encouragements. Time skipped back to when she was very young, when her powers first began to make themselves known. Whispers, voices, pictures in her head. She'd been frightened, afraid of what it meant, and, because of her parentage, she'd been in good hands from the start. Still, to look back on bygone days that now were yet to come was a good way to quickly boggle her mind, and she needed a clear head for this. She locked away that old memory, cataloged it for later review. Time was of the essence and dawdling wouldn't do at all. She stat back in her chair, shutting her eyes and trying to free herself from the stresses of physical life, to bring herself out of the mortal plan and into that odd space between the corporeal and the metaphysical. Her mind drifted away from her body, moved into the mind of Jean. It had a familiar warmth about it. ::Okay, I'll start with me.:: The room faded in around them, clean, empty. They needed a trunk, a table, something... She pictured it and a long line of shelves appeared. She stepped towards it, touched two fingers from each hand to her temples and pulled from her forehead a piece of herself, a small token, like a doll. It was imperfect however, moddled with damage like one might expect with termites. The Broodspores. Rachel's astral shape scowled at it. She looked around for her mother. "You're sure you don't want some sort of split with this? I'm worried about if these things pick up on what we're trying to do..." She stepped away from the shelf, opening a door outwards, into the blank stark nothingness of the raw astral plane. ::Hm.. Where to start.:: |
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| Jean | Jul 2 2012, 12:02 AM Post #5 |
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Telepathy, Telekinesis
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Everyone's mental space was as individual and personal as a fingerprint. In a real sense, it's their soul and no two souls were the same, just like snowflakes and in most cases, just as wonderfully beautiful. When Jean closed her eyes and went into her own mind, it was like stepping into an endless museum with all the significant moments in her life on display like exhibitions behind red velvet rope; she always was someone who kept her heart on her sleeve and in her mind, it was there for all to see. For all who could make it this far inside. She took the broken little doll from Rachel and turned it over and over in her hands as Rachel turned away and opened doors leading out into the minds of Utopia. Even without the recent pockmarks that were the Broodspores, it saddened Jean to see Rachel's mental essence in such a state of... disrepair. She looked over at Rachel's back and opened her mouth to speak then stopped and reconsidered, was this really the best time? The answer came as soon as she asked herself the question. Yes, there was always time for the ones you care about and if there's not time, then you make the time. "Find your father," Jean said, her voice studiously neutral. "He's our first priority. Then the rest of the command staff; it's important to make sure the chain of command is secure. Then we'll go by level of Brood progression, taking the worst cases first." Not far away from Jean, a display case of sorts formed out of nothing and Jean put Rachel's mental doll in a prominent place. This would be the nexus and all those connected to it would be through some important symbol. "That was a pretty brave thing you did when you dove into the creature's mind to save the others," she said over her shoulder as she laid the doll down but that didn't look right, not for a Summers, and created a mental stand, letting the doll stand on her own two feet. Symbolism mattered, especially in the mind. |
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| Marvel Girl | Jul 7 2012, 10:17 PM Post #6 |
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She nodded to Jean and veered off through the Astral. The space between minds, as vast as the universe and yet small enough to fit into a space as small as half a thimble, blared an unconscious white, all around her. She closed her eyes to it, opening them to see a winding path unfold, every few steps a path veered off, each one given a labeled mail box. It took what seemed like days but must have been only a few moments to find the correct one. She opened it, whispers of thoughts old and new wafting out like a scent on the breeze. She reached inside and pulled out something glowing. Lifting it to look beyond the blinding blare she squinted false-astral eyes to see what sat in her hands. Smiling as it came into view, she looked back from whence she'd come, heading in that direction. When she arrived back, Jean had already begun improving the base framework she's managed to conjure out of the psychic ether. It made her half smile as she moved across the room, now decidedly less empty. "That was a pretty brave thing you did..." "I wasn't trying to be brave, really, just... that thing needed put down. I overstepped myself. It won't happen a second time." She looked at the object she carried. "Sorry, if that came off wrong, I... didn't mean to sound snippy." She placed the deHavilland Mosquito onto the shelf, giving one of its props a spin. "Y'know he had me building Level 3's by the time I was six. I had a Lockheed YF22 with the wings and the antenna on crooked... but I did it all by myself so it was like the greatest thing I'd ever accomplished." She stopped short, not recounting the whole memory. "I... I never did get to really thank you, for... you know, for getting that thing out of my head." |
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| Jean | Jul 12 2012, 09:53 PM Post #7 |
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Telepathy, Telekinesis
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"I wasn't trying to be brave, really, just... that thing needed put down. I overstepped myself. It won't happen a second time." "You will," Jean said, laying down the comment as fact. "We all do; jumping into the unknown is at the heart of what we do. You never know how deep the water is until you take the plunge and dive in; you wouldn't be a Summers if you didn't take risks. The trick is being able to save yourself if you find that the water is a little too deep." She watched Rachel put Scott's mental anchor into the mental node of display shelves. An airplane. Her lips curved into a faint smile as Rachel reminisced. "I hope I managed to make sure you had a few dolls when you were little. Airplanes maybe be interesting," they weren't for Jean, no matter how much time she'd spent in Scott's mind, his love of the machines had never rubbed off, "but they aren't really good for cuddling or tea parties." She tried to keep her tone light and easy but it was still hard to talk to Rachel, knowing that she had a whole other set of memories and experiences of her and Scott, but they weren't really her and Scott. Rachel knew things about them that they didn't even know about each other. She was a walking 'what if'; only in Rachel's case, the 'what if' had ended in their failure and deaths and leaving their daughter to suffer a harsh future. But she smiled at the obvious pleasure Rachel had in her memory of the planes; she was definitely her father's daughter. "I... I never did get to really thank you, for... you know, for getting that thing out of my head." "I wish I could've stopped it then," her smile dimmed at the missed opportunity, "and all this," her gaze went to the beginnings of the mental net they were building, "wouldn't be necessary." "Hank next, I think," Jean said, her chin gesturing to the white room that made up the mindscape around them. "I can't imagine he's much different than the Hank you remember. He never seems to change." |
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| Marvel Girl | Jul 17 2012, 10:56 PM Post #8 |
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Unregistered
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The recognition of her last name from Jean brought a wider smile to her face, one that for whatever reason she felt obligated to hide behind an expression of rapt concentration. Her head bobbed in an affirmative nod and she moved back to the little door she'd constructed for herself. "You're right, but I like to think my folks taught me pretty well how to swim." She said, thoughts passing to some of the darkest parts of her own memory, the oily, inky bits that she was almost certain she'd rather leave in that forgetful haze. "And even when I felt like I couldn't I had something to fight for." She looked around the blank white room, it's little shelves and pedestals weaving into existence. "Sometimes hardship's inevitable. It's a force for progress, I guess. Falling to it's not failure, I don't think. Sometimes its snuck in and dirty, but..." Trailing off, she looked to her mother. Who she knew better than any one else and yet, here, now? She knew her so very little. It was a tiresome thought, but she didn't want for her to feel like they'd failed. Didn't want her to feel as if it had been there fault. It wasn't mutants who had failed in their protections. It was humans who had failed in their humanity. "Nothing that happened to me was any of your fault." She said, curtly, nodding as she stepped out, floating through that abyss, walking down that road, picking out and wrapping a shield around that piece of Hank's consciousness. When she returned, it was with a book. Thoreau, Shakespeare, who knew? It was undecidedly Hank though, with dreamy ideas and doofy little doodles scrawled about in the margins. She set it up, ready for her mother's ministrations, and turned to face her. "You know you used to talk to me, before I was even born you would talk to me. Past that, you'd talk to me. In my crib. I don't remember what was said, really, I was so little, but it was there all the same. It's a quiet memory, but its one of the ones I hold closest." |
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2:24 PM Jul 11