2014.03.04 - Telepaths Crossing

The harbor was having a moment of silence, as the last waves of morning traffic had moved on, at least for the moment. It was 10:59am: too early for the dock worker's lunches, most of them had moved indoors to sort their wares. One particular area, a small 15x15 foot, fenced in area was a mostly neglected, chaotic, heap of rotting, broken, wooden pallets. The wind started going again, and the weeds that'd sprung up from under the pile were flopping and swiping at the decaying boards.

Here, also, was Mantis, who had stayed quiet the last few minutes, waiting for the right, quiet moment. She nibbled a celery stalk as she waited. Then she stood up, gazed around, her antenna picking up some of the breeze. With a skittish hop, she jumped on top of one of the sturdier-looking piles, and began scanning the area. She was looking to scavenge some wood, and despite their shoddy condition... for Mantis, this was a reasonable spot as any to pick from. She began humming a little tune to herself, glancing back and forth, being indecisive.

Jono doesn't have much of an excuse for being out here, other than the fact that there's not likely to be man other people around. And empty places are the best places for someone like him. Or so he can never seem to stop telling himself. Now, brooding wasn't exactly something he had /planned/ to do today, it certainly wasn't in his day planner not that he has one, but he seems to have slipped into the old habit nonetheless.

He's got his gaze fixed out on the water, but when he hears the humming, he starts to look around. He can't spot the source at first, probably some pile of something in between them, so he sends out what limited telepathic 'feelers' he has, identifies the presence of another sentient mind, and projects, as politely as one can project unannounced telepathic contact. |"Erm, uh, didn't realize anyone was out here. Just... giving you a heads-up I'm here, and... don't be too shocked when you see me, a'right? Not here to hurt anyone."| He takes a few more steps away from the water. He's a tall, thin young man, with most of his disfigurement covered by a black scarf, but there's still a pretty good crop of scars continuing up from the covered portion of his face. He hasn't spotted Mantis yet.

With the sudden voice in Mantis' head, she instinctively gave a long, slow blink... gathering a sense of the person who was getting closer. Moments before she saw him with her eyes, she saw flashes of him in her mind, as she climbed down the rubble and stepped carefully around the chunks of splinter-spouting wood pieces spread around, eventually shifting in a series of delicate but graceful little hops.

Mantis actively *pushed back* the telepathic connection, speaking into his mind with the same even-tempered politeness he'd given.

|"Leaves fall,"| Mantis responded, followed by a quick, pepppy chuckle of laughter. |"Just as people collide."|

She poked her head around the narrow opening in the fence, and twisted her neck to the side. Preparing to spot Chamber, she moved into a posture to appear neither angry nor weak... just in case.

The young man blinks in surprise a few times, but doesn't show much shock at Matis's appearance. He went to Xavier's, then lived in mutant town, and now divides his time between the two places. Weird is his normal, and has been for a while. If anything, he looks a bit more comfortable around this new person now. |"Hullo there. I'm Jonothon,"| he offers in a tone as cheerful as he's capable of projecting. |"So, what's a nice telepath like you doing in a place like this?"|

Watching Jono arrive, Mantis quietly looks on with a bit of wonder. |"Is your patrol broken?"| she asked Jono with a an earnest tone. |"A scavenger's tumble. Growing new life,"| was what she said next. The cryptic tone seemed unwittingly obtuse, like a person struggling, failing to speak clearly, but leaping into it anyway. |"I must be rat-formed, here, ruins-eyed."|

He looks a little confused. |"Patrol?"| he asks, not sure what she means. He thinks about her other words though. Scavenging, he gets. He's known humans who've been reduced to that. |"Scavenging for food?"| He starts patting his pockets, as if expecting to find a chocolate bar or something. |"Right, that was silly. I don't have anything with me, I uh... don't eat. No mouth."| Hesitating, he removes his scarf, and the bandages beneath it. The energy from within flares out a bit. |"You were right about something being broken, yeah."| It doesn't seem right to hide his differences from someone as alien-looking or, he's quickly realizing, possibly actually alien, not just a more extreme example of mutation, as he'd originally assumed.

Mantis took a few careful steps over to Chamber, and looked at him with a gentleness. As he padded his pockets, she spoke in a calm telepathic voice |"You enjoy this telephone channel?"| She paused a second. |"Ta-da for us!"| This last bit might've been sarcastic, it seemed like she was commenting on the telepathic link. She suddenly realized how silly it might be to play mental tug-o-war. She'd not met many telepaths in her life, so far, and hadn't yet had the displeasure of mental wrestling wit another, enemy psychic.

She soon realized that she was being insensitive, just seconds before he removed his scarf: Jono didn't have the option to speak out-of-telepathy. She'd never even considered the idea.

|"You have... you."| She paused, and a rush of jumbled, half-second montage flash-forwads flooded her mind, showing incomprehensible flashes of Jono's future. None of it made much sense, at least not yet. Mantis didn't seem even the slightest bit grossed out or apprehensive about his mutation.

She merely looked into his eyes, and asked, |"Mantis... but not a bug."|

<font color="#0000FF">|"Nice to meet you, Mantis. Who is not a bug."| He motions to the flame-like energy within him. <font color="#0000FF">|"Not really sure how to explain all this, other than just sayin' I'm a mutant."| He scratches the back of his neck, chagrined that he can't quite figure out her little language quirks. <font color="#0000FF">|"If it's easier for you to talk than to project, I can still hear fine. Whatever's easier for you."|

<font color="#0000FF">|"All is well,"| Mantis said with a sudden movement, and pulled herself back behind the fence. The sound of boards of wood could be heard clapping together, bit by bit. <font color="#0000FF">|"Just a few."| A few more board cracked down to the ground from behind the fence, and after seven or so seconds, Mantis had re-emerged with a bundle of short wooden plywood planks, about eight of them, nestled in her arms. She moved back into his space, and looked at him for a second, oddly silent.

<font color="#0000FF">|"Mutants? A gang?"| she asked, and made a sudden motion with her head, suggesting they walk together. It would appear that Mantis didn't know what a 'mutant', specifically, was.

<font color="#0000FF">|"No, nothing like that. Just. Humans who end up different, like this,"| he points to his face- or lack there of, stepping up alongside her. He puts the bandages and scarf back in place, if only 'cause that's easier than carrying them. <font color="#0000FF">|"Guessing you're not from around here?"| he asks, shoving his hands into his empty coat pockets.

<font color="#0000FF">|"Six months,"| Mantis replies quickly, regarding her time 'here'. <font color="#0000FF">|"Plus twenty-five years"|, she adds, laughing slightly at her own odd joke. Turning to walk, she faces him slightly, while idly stepping Southward. <font color="#0000FF">|"I've 'ended up different',"| she adds, echoing his words. As they advance forward, Mantis points ahead to a random oat plant, a 'weed', dried-out and beige. As they close in on it, the appearance rapidly changes, as the color greens and the plant begins growing at a rapid pace. Its uncanny movement slopes downwards, and then back upwards, and soon reveals a rather artistic spiral shape, just as they pass it.

<font color="#0000FF">|"Ha! That's quite the gift"| Jono says, and would be smiling if he could. His eyes even crinkle a bit at the corners as if he were. <font color="#0000FF">|"Do you have somewhere safe to stay while you're here?"| he asks. <font color="#0000FF">|"There are a few places in Mutant Town that'll give you a bed for a while if you need one, no questions asked. You really seem to be able to take care of yourself, but... still."|

Mantis grins at the concern of her well being, but shrugs off the idea. <font color="#0000FF">|"All things end,"| she comments with a matter-of-factual tone, <font color="#0000FF">|"We fill our will, and then scatter. Like ash. Home is where the *hearth* is."| Mantis seems to jump between playful and serious at a rate that seems almost unnerving. Something else, too: she gave off a tremendous torrent of fluttering psychic energy, which felt something like a hummingbird with a pair of infrared goggles, scanning the environment with a kind of almost.. drunken frenzy. Something about her interacting with the physical environment, at large, was feeding her. <font color="#0000FF">|"I've been hunting,"| she says, <font color="#0000FF">|"Not ghost hunting, but skipping trails of henceforth."|

Okay, the hearth joke gets a chuckle out of him, though his telepathic impression of laughter is imperfect, something he's never been able to nail down right. But it gets the point across. <font color="#0000FF">|"I'll have to remember that one,"| he says, still not totally understanding her, but intrigued. <font color="#0000FF">|"Anything specific you're looking for?"| he wonders, hoping that he'll start catching on to her communication the more he 'talks' to her.

<font color="#0000FF">|"Poison clouds."| Mantis responded; the non-sequitor seemed serious. <font color="#0000FF">|"Will any cross your path--"| she says, but corrects herself. <font color="#0000FF">|"Have you any allies of contagion? Enemies that cast great sickness? To quell the fire before it starts cutting the string."|

Mantis begins moving on a more directly Southwest path, which seems to head closer to a docking area for a fairy boat between Gotham and Metropolis, in the distance. Still at least 500 feet away, some random people have formed a line, completely unconcerned about two random people walking along the docks. <font color="#0000FF">|"Can't say I'm facing any imminent disasters in the near future, that I know of,"| he says, kind of starting to glean what she means. <font color="#0000FF">|"But I guess I'll keep you in mind. I'll admit some of the people I live an' work with have a way of running in to that sorta thing Ev'ry so often."| A bit of an understatement for the X-Men.

Mantis stops in her tracks, and turns to face Jono. <font color="#0000FF">|"They accept you? These people?"| She tilts her head and waits for his answer, and for the first time she uses her empathy ability on Jono: discovering a territory far more emotionally layered than many people she's read as of late. <font color="#0000FF">|"You wrestle yourself, and win."| She presses a I-know-about-you tone here, which is only partly justified, as she begins to presume things about him based solely on her rough impressions. <font color="#0000FF">|"Yet... you remain uncertain. Pained."|

Mantis maintains her gaze on him, against her usual nature to avoid eye contact. She says instructively, <font color="#0000FF">|"The figure is not the cause. They're not toxic, these fears. A cover, a clue."|

<font color="#0000FF">|"More or less, yeah"| he says, then considers her further words. Yeah. These ones, he gets what she's saying. A little too well. He does his best impression of a sigh. <font color="#0000FF">|"I wasn't always like this,"| he explains. <font color="#0000FF">|"I lost a lot. And hurt someone when it happened,"| he explains. <font color="#0000FF">|"Took me a long time to stop blaming myself. It's an uphill battle, but I'm gaining ground."| He can totally use metaphors too. <font color="#0000FF">|"I've gotta head back but- you come out here often? Maybe we could have another chat sometime."|

Mantis stifles a little laugh, and waves at him reflexively, continuing to walk towards the fairy to Gotham; it seems to be her destination.

<font color="#0000FF">|"Oh, I'll find you."| she says ominously, and begins jogging away towards the boat, her planks of wood in her arms clacking against each other. She was going to ride the boat without a disguise since she didn't have the time to put it on. She couldn't yet see how this was going to turn out, but she suspected it would be... poorly.