2013.09.05 - Relapse

Hammer Bay, Genosha. Noon. Most cities could be considered relatively safe during the day... Or at least safer than they are at night. Not so in Hammer Bay. The constant tension between the mutants and the fully-armed humans is always just below boiling. Any minor incident could potentially spark an all out riot, a fact not lost on virtually every citizen of the coastal city.

There are, however, 'safe zones' where the reigning power has really cracked down and thus, these safe zones are filled with stores and tend to attract the few people of wealth and fame. It is here, of course, that the majority of weak and defenseless beggars set up shop, eagerly offering out their collection cups to anyone who passes too close.

Monet St. Croix is traveling under unique circumstances. It is not the group of well dressed and grimly attentive men that are with her. They are very usual, these days.

Her second entourage abandoned her some time ago. She has come directly from Bastion. From there, she had acquired a covert watcher. Hammer Bay was apparently the limit of the observation.

The young woman is alone, aside from her caretakers. She might as well be alone. They guided her to one of the safe zones, having previously scouted the area. Monet allowed them. There are plenty of interesting things to see in the places set up for tourism. They reveal as much about a city as the hidden places. One can learn many things about the people in power by studying how they dress the stage.

Monet stands outside a store, looking in through the large, unadorned window. One of her handlers offers to search the inside before she enters. She does not respond immediately.

"Spare some change, Miss?"

The withered voice belongs to a seemingly ancient old man, a beggar who shuffles closer to Monet, collection cup outstretched. Clearly he's seen better days -- his skin clings tightly to his bones, and there appears to be almost no substance to him at all. The rags that serve as clothing hang off his small frame in layers and, the smile he presents to Monet is missing a handful of teeth.

"Change, Miss?" he repeats in his dust-like voice. Despite everything his eyes seem to be full of life, and they dart quickly between her and her handlers. Clearly they drew attention to her wealth and power -- certainly the poor were never flanked by attendants. "Such a pretty girl, surely you wouldn't mind sparing some pocket change for the unfortunate?"

The black-haired woman still does not respond when a second person attempts to gain her attention. She is listening. One of the men with her moves to block the beggar.

Monet turns her head. She does not appear to be irritated, but the complete lack of expression in her face may be intimidating. "You're hunting large game. 'Pretty' does not suffice. It may as well be an insult to someone in my position. You would do better to appeal to my generosity than my appearance, in any case."

The handler attempting to impose himself between the two pauses. She's acknowledged the beggar, so now he can't shuffle the man off. He looks back at his charge for instructions. Monet glances toward a bake shop across the street.

"Frederick. Go buy him something."

The handler nods, spares a look at the beggar, and then departs. The rest of the handlers shift about to account for the loss. Military precision. Monet looks back to the store front before her, blankly inspecting a purse. "I don't carry cash. Nobody carries cash by choice these days."

The man's face barely changes as the handler interposes himself between the beggar and Monet, but as she orders him to go buy something from the bakery, his smile brightens and he promptly doubles over in a terribly low bow. "So very kind and generous," he croaks again, straightening back up so he can look past the guards at right at Monet. Her pride seems to spark something in the man's eyes, approval, maybe, but it's gone quickly. "Yes, yes... Kind and generous... And, and /beautiful/ of course. Absolutely right. Pretty doesn't describe it. Just stunning..." Then his face calms, and his grin changes subtely, from happiness to knowing, and he croaks out calmly, as if discussing the weather.

"Now I see why your brother wanted you so badly."

"I said someone in my position, not me. I find it tiresome--"

Monet freezes. Her hands curl into fists, fingernails digging painlessly and uselessly into her palms. She could not pierce her own skin if she tried. When she turns to look at the beggar again, her eyes are wide. Her face wars between anger, fear, and control. Anger is winning.

"What did you say to me?"

Her handlers react, even before she asks for a clarification. One stands near Monet, two more coming closer but looking in the opposite direction. Two move to press the beggar back. Frederick is already jogging back across the street, minus food.

"Sir, please back away--" one of them begins.

The varied emotions fighting for dominance in Monet's expression just makes the beggar smile more. As the handlers scurry about to try and protect her and remove the threat, the ancient man simply flicks his fingers at which point each one, including Frederick, begin to feel a five ton telekinetic force pull them away from their charge. "I said... Now I see why your brother wanted you so badly. You really /are/ a special one, aren't you, Monet?" The man begins to close the distance between them, dry voice slowly changing into a silky tone, marked distinctly by an archaic english accent. "I remember watching you and your sisters playing for hours, how frail you were back then. I imagine now you'd be able to rip my head from my shoulders without a thought, wouldn't you?" The beggar's head ticks to the side as he watches her face keenly, "Show them what you've become since that day when Marius took you. Show them the true Monet."

The men are flicked away one by one, bodily lifted and pulled away like a child dismissing unneeded toys. Monet glances at the first man to be thrown away, and then the second. After that, she continues to stare at the beggar.

Her nostrils flare. She exhales sharply. She is gone.

Monet is quick. At this distance, she is faster than persistence of vision. Her hand is around the beggar's throat and he is up against the wall, feet dangling. "I will be glad to accommodate you after I'm done with your mind," she snarls.

She is touching him. It is the perfect condition for her telepathy to operate under. She is not gentle. Monet is angry and she does not care about breaking and entering.

As he suddenly finds himself hoisted into the air by his throat, placed firmly against a wall he laughs. A choked laugh, surely, but certainly not the sound of someone afraid of being strangled. His hand instantly claps around her wrist with a surprising strength -- far more than even a perfectly fit man in the prime of his life could reach, let alone some ancient, starved beggar. He doesn't try to pull her away though, no, in fact he seems to be doing the opposite, making sure she can't let go...

And the second she touches his mind it should become all too obvious why. She may have expected some kind of defense after his demonstrated telekinetic ability, but this goes far and above that. The most she's able to learn before the mental walls slam up around his mind is that, despite his already advanced age... he's even older than he appears. Approaching two centuries, in fact, and a lifetime of traveling and learning. Once he's firmly defended his mind, he goes on a rampaging attack of his own. Mental probes sent out, one after the other, relentlessly searching for a way into her mind.

Her handlers do not rise. They are tough, hardy men who have survived many dangerous situations in life. They were not prepared to be run over by invisible trucks.

Monet closes her fingers around the beggar's throat. She digs her nails in, perhaps more usefully. Her breath comes in raggedly, and sharp when she is shut out. She stops breathing when the attack turns on her.

There is no obvious way into her mind. It is not a mutant power. It is discipline, ego, or perhaps fear. There is no trick to pierce her defenses. She must be beaten into submission, as brutally as one would break a horse.

For a few tense seconds, Monet remains locked in this struggle. She shuts her eyes, a scream building behind her throat. Her hand tightens around the man's throat. A normal person would be a smoking husk at this point, a mental burnout.

"Ça suffit!"

The telekinetic response comes more quickly than the beggar's dealings with Monet's handlers. She does not make it theatrical. It's just force, angry and savage, pushing him out of her hand and through the wall.

Finally the smile fades from the beggar's face as he's forced bodily through the wall behind him. The shop where he ends up is suitably surprised to see him arrive in such a dramatic manner, but it's when he rises that they all start to back away. Black smoke curls around him from the waist down, slowly engulfing him as he begins to lengthen and stretch, elongating from the broken old man into a much younger looking one. A very familiar one, in fact.

Monet's father.

"What's wrong, Monet? Don't you recognize me?" He steps forward, confidently striding from the ruined building back out into the street, eyes locked on Monet until he's within a few feet of her, at which point she'll feel a tremendously strong force slam into her from behind. Five times as strong as what her handlers felt, while at the same time her father drives his fist forward, aimed straight for her jaw. "Or maybe you don't believe it's me? Let me into your mind and I can prove it..."

Monet remains poised outside of the hole she created, her stance wide. She is doing very well, considering how precariously she is perched on those heels. She slows her breathing. She is in control.

The debris and unnatural smoke briefly obscure her vision. It does not stop it completely. She is very good at seeing through such minor distractions. Monet curls her lips in disgust.

"How dare you!" the young woman says, venom spilling from every syllable. Nevertheless, her mind reaches out briefly, brushing against her prey's mental barriers.

The telekinetic thrust slams into her back before she can pursue him. She is lifted from her feet, but is only carried so far into the store before digging her feet down. Her heels are torn from her, but Monet continues to telekinetically force herself downward, stopping her forward momentum. The floor rips asunder as she grinds to a stop.

She is easy prey for the man's attack. Her head snaps to the side, but there is no cry of pain. She was fragile when she was young. She is older now.

Monet's hands lash out for the man again. There is no hesitation. One for his throat, one for the top of his head. One squeezes, the other pulls.

She always keeps her promises.

There's only laughter as Monet tears what appears to be her father's head from his shoulders, smoke rather than blooding roiling forth from both ends up his severed neck, coiling in the middle.

"Very good..." his disembodied head murmurs, before the world turns upside down with a tremendous rushing of wind and darkness.

The next thing Monet might notice, is that, along with restoring itself to the proper orientation, the world has changed around her. It looks like they're inside some massive creature, large enough to serve as lodging in fact. The walls are clearly organic, as is just about everything in the area save the technology. They're clearly in a cell of kind, though it appears to double as a laboratory if the table and surgical tools in the middle of the room are any guide.

Immediately after arriving, the floor and ceiling come to life, stretching out and seeking Monet's limbs as if to secure her and prevent her from moving. Simultaneously, Monet's opponent fades entirely into smoke and well away from her grip while the entire room starts to fill up with a toxic smelling gas.

Monet pulls. She is hyper-aware. The spine is the first to come apart. She can hear it fracture and then pop. Not her father.

Monet pulls. There are many tendons in the neck. They snap, one by one. Closer to the surface, she can see them bulge reflexively before it happens. They snap in clusters, starting on the right side and moving left. Not her father.

Monet pulls. The flesh begins to tear before all the tendons come apart. It follows the same right to left pattern. She is quick enough that it takes time for the blood to start gushing. There is a lot of it, once the carotid arteries break.

Not her father.

Monet steps back, breathing shallow and fast. She lets the body drop, holding the head of her 'father' before her. There is blood on her dress. Carotid arteries are excitable. Her hands are covered in it. She breathes faster.

Behind her father's head, the world changes. Staring into the glassy eyes of the still-talking head saves her from some of the disorientation. She tosses it away, watching it roll across the new floor. When she looks up to see where she' standing, it's almost in afterthought.

The young woman skips backward, reflexively taking to the air as soon as she sees movement. It's enough to temporarily foil the amorphous room, but the advantage of surprise is not with her. Something grabs her arm and she can't pull away from it.

Just before Monet feels herself falling backward, it occurs to her that she shouldn't be breathing as fast as she is. She's not in shock. Darkness creeps into the edges of her sight.

Oh. Poison. That explains it.

As the poison begins to take effect, the body of Monet's father begins to reform and solidify, slowly filling out until he stands even taller than he ever has -- his skin far too pale, perfectly white in fact, but his head is still covered in shadow as he finally comes back together, just on the outskirts of the room. The gas hasn't quite reached him yet, but another tendril seperates from the wall and coils loosely around his neck, at which point the gas, despite climbing up above his shoulders, stays well away from his hidden face.

"I'd welcome you to your new home, but I hardly think you'll remember any of this when you next awake. I'll have to urge you not to resist -- though I know it falls on deaf ears. You will not have access to your abilities and I wouldn't want you to injure yourself. You are indeed a prize, my dear. You'll do well in my Marauders..."

The room secures the rest of Monet's limbs. She is limp, blearily staring at the ceiling. Her head lolls to the side. It is the most she can accomplish when trying to look at the source of the speaker.

She is falling still. Falling into herself. The world spirals away just out of her grasp. She thinks she is screaming, but it dies in her throat.

Internally, her healing factor is in overdrive. Monet has been poisoned to a theoretically fatal level. She cannot die that easily. Her blood-brain barrier swells. It is saving her life at the cost of her consciousness.

It is very simple to predict such reactions, when you know how healing factors work.