"You took on ten beholders… you?" Asked the man with the jewel-embedded eyepatch guarding the gangway plank to Captain Krag's ship.
"That's right!" Replied Zerzer the Bloodless. "All by myself! I did it with my tail tied behind my back."
"And with his tail tied behind his back…" mumbled the eyepatched man's much shorter, much more slack-jawed peer.
"Shut it," Elbowed eyepatch. "His tail being behind his back wouldn't make a bloody bit of difference. His tail is always behind his back!"
"Still sounds impressive, eh?" Droned the other man.
"And there I was," started Zerzer, "my back against the wall with nothing but a dull dagger to fight off the scourge of one-eyed beasties -"
"Hogwash…" the eyepatched pirate crossed his arms and raised his chin.
Evan's ethereal face appeared between the figures, "You're going to need to roll at least a D15 persuasion check if you want this guy to believe Zerzer did any of this, Kurt."
"Oh, right." Zerzer, his red scaly face now replaced with Kurt's face, pulled out a D20 from his breast pocket and rolled it on the ground.
"Hmm, a 14 isn't gonna do it…" Declared the almighty voice of Evan. "Unless your friend Galloway can back up your story. Then it might just be enough."
Back in a world filled with a little less whimsy, Anna sat cross-legged at the large spool they used for a table. Her elbows propped on the table, with her finger, she rocked a small wooden knight chess piece they'd use on occasion during the game to represent guards, monsters, and sometimes Kitty's character when she lost her piece. The pad of her finger manipulated the piece by the horse's pointy ears, and as time passed, she pressed her finger harder and harder into the piece. She could feel the sharp wood press into her finger and flex the skin, but no matter how hard she pressed, she could barely feel the sting of pain.
"Anna?"
It was only at the call of her real name did she look up at Evan, "What?"
"Gonna join us sometime today?"
"Sorry," She let up on the force she exerted on the chess piece. It stuck in her skin just long enough to fall to the table and make a loud 'clunk'. "What do I need to roll?"
"Nothing yet. You gonna help Zerzer out or what?"
Anna blinked as she glanced between the pair. Her glassy eyes were unable to focus on either of them. "Yeah, if it's okay with you guys, I think I'm going to sit this out one out."
"Sit this one out?" Evan took off his crushed velvet hood. "We can't have a game with just Kurt! We're already down, Kitty and Scott!"
"Then - I don't know," Anna got up from the table and heard multiple cracks in her back. "I guess we'll just have to do it another time."
"Another time? I made a whole mini-campaign for us during break. If we don't finish today's session, that will put us back!"
"Ev…" Kurt held his boyfriend's shoulder. The other boy's rage was momentarily redirected before the burning coals began to simmer.
Anna was already down the ladder from the attic and halfway down the hallway when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She spun on the spot and saw a figure dressed in medical scrubs with a tight-knit blonde bun of hair on her head and long surgical gloves that crinkled at the elbows. One of her hands white knuckled her shoulder in place while the other hand held a syringe the length of a ruler.
"Get away from me!" She tried to shove the woman back, but instead lost her footing and fell. She must have hit her head because next she opened her eyes, she was seeing stars and felt a throbbing in the back of her head.
"Oh my god, Anna! Are you alright?" She heard through a soft ringing in her ears. When the dancing half-rendered images before her finally combined into one, she saw Jean kneeling over her. "Anna, can you hear me?" She saw the other girl extend a hand toward Anna's forehead, stop halfway there, and instead snap it back toward her own chest. "Damn it," she whispered. "Anna, can you -"
"I'm fine." Anna was shocked to hear the stiffness in her voice. Sure, she'd likely hit her head, but it almost sounded like she'd taken up smoking. "I'm fine." She said again after clearing her throat and raising herself to a sitting position.
"What's going on?" Kurt called from halfway down the ladder.
"I'm not sure." With cautious hands, Anna could feel Jean gently probing the back of Anna's head. "I said hi, and Anna shouted and shoved me." Jean's fingers became a little stiffer. "Does this hurt, Ann?"
"I told you, I'm fine, Jean."
"You didn't seem like it a moment ago."
"I'm… just a little sleep deprived."
"Bad dreams?"
"Something like that."
Kurt knelt next to his sister, "We should take you down to the Auto-Doc downstairs, Ann."
"I don't need that thing looking at me. I already told you -"
"That you're fine," Evan said from the bottom of the ladder, "we heard you the first million times."
"How have you been doing since the Juggernaut fight?" Jean sat cross-legged. "You know, mentally?"
"I guess as well as any of us. Shitty."
"You didn't see me when you looked at me initially, did you, Anna?"
"I -" Anna hessitated, then noticed Jean wasn't wearing her tuqoise earings. "Hang on… you -" She paused again and looked at the others. The others who didn't know that Jean's powers weren't strickly limited to telekonesis.
"It was the way you looked at me." Jean continued, "You looked like I was going to attack you."
A heat grew in Anna's neck. "It's nothing! I told you I didn't sleep well. That's all!" She stood suddenly, her head spinning. "I'm fine! I'm -"
She was in a hallway of the Xavier mansion, but not in one she was familiar with. The paint on the walls was different, as well as the carpet. The light outside had changed from midday to a setting sun that reflected off gray walls bare of any paintings or decoration.
She was alone in this place with only the sounds of creaking wood and figureless footsteps to acompany her. The more she looked around she saw that the walls were stedily getting taller and the windows at some point had grown thick iron bars over them. Instictivly she wrapped her hand around her throat as it became harder to breathe.
Bolting down the staircase and into the foyer she found the chandeler above had twisted into a series of still glistening tendrils, the floor had a checker tile pattern that had warped into elongated dimonds, and the front doors and turned into featurless metal sheets.
Drawn to one of the windows, she looked outside and saw a lush green field and a tall tree with a big ball sitting next to a toy truck. She felt a burning in her stomach as she pulled at the bars in the window. She pulled and pulled till her grip became slick with blood. "No!" She heard herself scream through tears as she pawed at the glass, leaving streaks of crimson in their wake.
A hand grabbed her shoulder, then her ankle, her left arm, and finally around her throat. More grabbing hands followed till they finally ripped her from the window. She was thrown to her back and pinned to the ground with leather restraints. All around her were men and women dressed in medical gear. Some just scrubs and lab coats, while others wore bright yellow hazmat suits and wielded machetes.
The mob split to make room for Charles Xavier. Without the need of a wheelchair, he stood over her, his face twisted in a warped smile. He drew a scaple, dropped a knee to her chest, and -
A large bucket materialized over the entire scene and upturned a world coating amount of a sky blue color that saturated everything around Anna. The pressure was pulled from Anna's chest and the characters surrounding her mixed with the flowing paint and dissapeared. With all details or shapes of the mansion washed away in the calming blue, a pinkish hue mixed in though large streaks like deliberate swipes of a painter's brush.
Anna floated there a while in the cascading colors. Her sore muscles soon felt relaxed and supported by a comforting heat. A sun rose from somwhere in the distance and shed a light difused by puffy coulds around her.
"Can you hear me, Anna?" Jean popped into view from Anna's left. She hadn't even realized she was now standing on her feet. She hadn't noticed, because her feet didn't even register her weight.
"Jean?"
"I'm sorry to barge in like this…" The other girl was close enough now that Anna could see Jean holding her knit hands close to her chest. "But you looked like you were in pain."
"What happened?"
"You fell on the floor and looked like you were having some sort of seizure. We took you downstairs, and the Auto-Doc is looking over you. Right now, I'm sitting in the chair next to you. Kurt is on your left, who is next to Evan. Scott left to get the adults."
"What's wrong with me?"
"Nothing physically," Jean connected her hands behind her back. "In fact, you seem healthier than ever. What was strange was when the doc tried to take a blood sample, he couldn't pierce your skin with a needle."
"How is that possible?"
"Anna… how long have you been having these visions?"
Anna crossed her arms. "Why are you asking me? Can't you just look in my mind and find the answers? How long have you had your earrings off, Jean? The minute the professor took off?"
"This isn't a mind probe, and this isn't about my earrings."
"How do I know you're not the one doing this to me? Maybe you're just messing with me! And - And you're just trying to gain my trust by making it all go away all of a sudden!"
Jean rubbed her forehead with the length of her hand. "Anna, why would I do any of that?"
"You're the mind reader! You're the only one that's capable of doing this!"
"Did I make your skin impenetrable, too?"
Anna looked away and gritted her teeth.
"I think we might need to consider that your encounter with the Juggernaut has left a lingering impression on you."
Anna didn't respond. She instead turned her hands over and examined the palms that were formerly bloodied and were now washed clean.
"You can absorb powers and memories, and with your extended contact -"
"You think I took his powers and memories for good?"
"Well, it's at least possible you lifted them from him for an extended period, yes."
"So, what? He's just going to live in my head forever now? I'll just keep seeing memories and visions that have nothing to do with me?"
"No… not necisarily."
"Then what?"
Jean's face suddenly looked a shade paler as her eyes diverted to the ground, "I wish the professor were here…"
Anna rubbed her chest. "You know, I'm okay with his absence for a while."
"I think… these visions are going to keep pestering you till we work through them."
"Work - through - them? What does that entail? Me being gutted by a ten-foot-tall Professor X?"
"I think these are twisted exaggerations of the truth. Something tells me this Juggernaut guy didn't get a whole lot of therapy -"
"Yah think?"
"And his baggage has kinda become yours. I think if I can help you sort through his memories, we can maybe put an end to these visions."
"Just eager to take off those training wheels and get to work with that mind reading, huh?"
"Why are you attacking me, Anna? I'm just trying to help you!"
"I didn't ask for your help!"
"So you'd rather rot in a mind that's not your own?"
Anna screwed her mouth shut and turned her back to the other girl. "… fine. Just… keep it to this guy's memories, alright?"
"I promise."
When Anna turned back around, Jean was stood before her. She extended her hand in the form of a handshake.