Spat From The Belly of Hell (Open)

[apocashrriipp]

Who: Paige Guthrie and Open*
What: Paige's arrival at Paradisa
When: 31st May
Where: Courtyard
Rating: PG
* Open yes, but the chains and collar she's arrived in will, obviously, only be able to be removed once. Otherwise have at her.

Before The Pull
The world was bruised.  Groaning under the weight of Apocalypse's reign.  There were pockets of heroes still but in here, the core, any heroes that existed are suppressed, powers choked by the suppressive weight of an inhibitor collar. Then their spirits are broken.   They shuffle through the core,  slaves to it with barely a word between them.  Only the new ones make noise.   Ask questions, rage for justice,  demand they lobby together to fight back,  then weep for their mothers. 

Paige Guthrie had been one such hero.   She went down swinging and fought tooth and nail.  She fought when they put the collar on.  She fought when they drilled her for information.  She fought when they slapped her in chains and put her to work. She's silent now, like the others, Paige drags herself through the days, mourning her team-mates and turning her escape over and over in her mind. She could do little with the inhibitor collar, smothering her powers. The itch, only a few weeks in, was unbearable. The need to shed was almost too much and in the snatches of sleep that came, Paige managed to maim herself, fingers scratching, digging at her flesh so hard she woke to bloodied fingers. The scars that formed bother her. She knows they're temporary, that as soon as the collar is gone she can get rid of them but...it feels wrong. Dirty, to exist in a damaged body for longer than necessary.

Today, this fateful day, Paige traipses through the core, through the deep underground layers of the power plant where humans and mutants are forced into labour. Her dark hair was thick with muck and plastered to her head, the healthy gloss of her red hair has been destroyed rapidly by the atmosphere here. Her uniform was long gone, replaced by a grey jumpsuit that is as worn and torn as its bearer. She walked in line with the others, monitored by a guard that urges them forward with barked orders. Chained at her hands and at her feet, eyes staring at a fixed point on the back of the head of the person in front of her. So focussed is she that when they pull up short, she ploughs into the back of them, knocking him and the two people before him flat.

"You! Forward!" The guard spat.   Paige afforded him a dark scowl.  She obeyed, weary feet taking that first fateful step forward.  She never broke her glare.  It didn't deter the guard, who reached forward, grasping her jaw in his thick fingers.   He yanked her head back.

"Do you know what the punishment is for an inmate attacking another?"

For an instant she said nothing.   The silence stretched out, the mounting tension like a tautly pulled string.  

When she spoke, the first time it came out it was muffled, her throat clogged by the same muck that polluted her hair.

"Run that by me again."  He ordered.   Paige, clinging to what embers were left of her vibrant spark, cleared her throat, and took her life in her hands. 

She pursed her lips and spat.   The dark, sticky fluid that had collected there throughout the day left her mouth in a vile spray that struck him square in the face.   Around her, the silence perpetuated, people watched but they did not interfere.   It was more than their lives were worth.

The rage that bloomed across his face was, in retrospect, something she would have liked to enjoy for a split second longer.  Unfortunately, she wouldn't get the pleasure.

Paradisa
Paige appeared in the courtyard, the sounds of his curses still ringing in her ears.  The light from the sun hit, and hurt her first.  Then the noise did.   Nothing deafening or unusual.   The sounds of birds, of people, odd the complete absence of the roar of the reactor. 

Pain shot briefly through her head, the act of memories Paradisa had tended in her absence being dumped back in their rightful place.   The shock, the looming, suddenly familiar feeling, and oh, that sweet air was more than she could take. Her unstable, chained feet gave out beneath her, knees striking the path with what should have been a healthy dose of pain. She didn't feel it. She couldn't feel it. It had come for her again and its timing was perfection. She didn't overthink why or what might happen when she returned. Instead, head bowed, Paige curled her fingers in the gravel bowed her head and, for the first time in her life, she wept with joy.

To a witness she would be a frightful sight; hair dank and matted, plastered to her head, her skin mucky and smudged with filth, her hands and feet chained with heavy links attached to thick cuffs. Around her neck is a serious piece of kit; an inhibitor collar; a choker, lit up at the front with a single, ominous looking yellow light.

Comments

[i_rule_me]

David had been trying very hard to ignore most of the psychic ripples he felt, since returning from the jungles of Jumanji. Trying to get his head together, and shake off the memories of that hunter, the one that looked so much like his father, he was.

That's when he notices her. The oddly familiar, and yet wrong feeling of something borne of his own sick mind, his own selfish mistakes. It's all he can do not to bolt for the Doctor's TARDIS, to hide himself away until whoever it was, was gone again.

Instead, he forces himself outside, slipping easily out of the castle, with nary a witness to his destination. She's easy enough to find, this ruined thing from a world that wasn't meant to exist, but David hold back, watching her from a distance, while he tries to reconcile the presence of someone from the Age of Apocalypse in Paradisa. Slowly, he approaches her, his hands dug deeply in his pockets.

"Why's it that this place always bloody takes us at our worst, eh?"

David crouches down so he's at eye-level with Paige, taking in the sight of her with his mismatched green-and-blue eyes. He recognizes the collar almost immediately. It's a little more high-tech, but there was no mistaking a mutant inhibitor collar.

"Want me ta get that wee nasty thing off o' you? I've seen what those things do ta people if left in 'em for too long.

[apocashrriipp]

Thank you, thank you, thank you she thought, her shoulders rising and falling with unsteady rhythms as the tears poured out of her. It couldn't know what it meant to her...could it? It was a possibility; this strange, almost living place, giving and taking as it saw fit, cruel and unrelenting sometimes and others? The acts of mercy could be immense, such as this one.

For a moment she is tied up in her own head and it is only when the footfalls of Haller are all but upon her that she stops. Her gut reaction is to tense, some small voice in her head telling her it could be a trick. That the steel capped boot of the guard could come raging into her vision and break her jaw. She chances it anyway, stealing a glance at his approach and it is a mixture of relief and, yes, a little perplexity, that she is met with a pair of bare, calloused feet.

The tension rolls off her as David's shadow looms overhead. She looks up from the ground, fingers releasing the gravel she had grasped, that she had been seconds away from kissing with delight. She can stop squinting now, adjusting quickly to the bright light above ground. The face of his creation is streaked with dirt and war-beaten. She looks at him with the remnants of her joy still present. He is thin, incredibly so, everything about him sharp angles and harsh lines. The accent doesn't match the face looking down at her.

Pushing back on her haunches, what aches Paige had carried became a memory. Chained hands reach up to brush the moisture from her face, a scratchy laugh bubbling up from her throat.

“Oh, believe me, it couldn't have had better timin'.” She sniffed, closing her eyes briefly and tilting her head up. The breeze felt...indescribably wonderful.

At his offer, she hesitated for a beat, dropping her head to fix him with a look. Her expression shifts to worry. How long has she worn this? Her entire enslavement which she had marked on the wall but...almost a month? Maybe a little less. She touches it, sliding her fingers against the collar, tugging at it with a renewed frustration.

“You can do that?” She asks, trying not to let the hope seep through. It could be too much to ask. “You can get rid of it?”

[i_rule_me]

David smiles at her reply, thinking of the hell she must have come from. His own glimpse of the Age of Apocalypse had been brief, but he would never in a million years forget the vision that had been forced upon him as payment for the crime he'd committed.

At her question though, David nods. Paige (mercifully) didn't know him, so in a way, he had a chance to try and make up for the horror he'd created in a moment of arrogance and stupidity. It wasn't much, but it was something.

"Aye, I can. Either I can rip the thing open telekinetically, or I can talk to the sodding thing, convince it ta deactivate itself without a fuss. All I needs for ya t'hold still for a minute or two, while I figure it out."

[apocashrriipp]

As was to be expected, David's casual explanation brought from her a quizzical look that bordered heavily on doubt. Talk to it? Had she been anyone else, the telepathy remark might have been of equal concern but Paige knew more than her fair share of people with that particular talent; for her it was no more unusual than one's ability to touch their nose with their tongue.

Dutifully she did pull her hands away from the collar, bracing her palms against her thighs as her head tipped to one side on her neck. She watched him closely, unsure what to anticipate from him. Baby talk maybe? Binary? She did as she was told however, no sass, no fuss, a touch of amusement gracing her expression.

“Fire away, Sparky.”

[i_rule_me]

"Right then, this shouldn't take but a minute."

In his mind, David pulls forward both Zubar and Clnk, giving him command over his telekinesis and wireless communication, and as he accesses his wireless communication, a small, hexangonal radar dish appears on top of his tall tower of hair. He accesses the collar's communication chip, which allows him into it's higher functions, which leads him to the disable command, which he engages. The collar's yellow light blinks once, and then disengages, falling to the ground with a dull thud.

"That was easier'n I thought it was gonna be. I was all prepared ta fling this thing out inta space like a baseball."

Speaking far too soon, the collar suddenly lights up again, the light on the front of the collar pulsing out a countdown. Thinking quickly, David grabs the thing telekinetically, and flings it as hard as he can, watching the explosion as it happens hundreds of feet in the air.

"I really need ta stop sayin' shite like that."

[apocashrriipp]

“Wait—whoa, what the hell is that?” But he's already in deep, his focus up close yet far away and very, very still. She felt nothing, not until the weight of the collar was pulled away from her, clattering uselessly to the ground. The sight of it boiled hate within her, her expression shifting with a swiftness the wind couldn't beat. Who'd have thought that something so simple to look at, with it's...now fiercely flashing light...could suppress so much? For some of them it had been dangerous. Some had died, their mutations the only thing keeping their hearts beating. Others...the torture had been slow and agonising. Judging from the deep gouges that littered Paige's exposed flesh, her experience was the latter.

Leaning back, though surprised, she watched with relish as it was flung away, cartwheeling beautifully to its apex before it was obliterated, raining down in harmless flakes. The feeling was already returning, pins and needles undulating beneath her epidermis. The need to husk was as immediate as it had been for the last few weeks and the fact that the possibility was back within her grasp was almost too much to bear. She glanced from the smouldering remains of the explosion that charred the blue sky back to David.

“Cute trick.” She said at last. It didn't quite communicate the enormity of the feat but it was all she had to offer.

“Now for mine.” She unfurled to a stand on weary feet. The weight of the chains would no longer be an issue. Nor would an explanation be needed for what she was about to do after seeing a satellite dish pop from the guy's head.

Her body took over with very little thought from her. She closed her fingers around her hairline and felt the skin give away, shredding dry, brittle skin away from what was underneath. She inflicted a greater degree of control than she was accommodated to, restricting the husk she ached for to her head, her hands, and her feet. The scars were shucked away, as were the chains, which turned brittle and ashy from the connection to her flesh. She wanted to strip it all away, any trace of her that had been linked to that place but...well, it would not have been the first time she'd have raised eyebrows in an open space like this. She thought better of it and instead, forced down the need. Later. Later she could gorge.

Rubbing her neck, she threw him an incredulous look.

“You pick up premium channels with that thing, too?” She asked. There was a loaded question behind it. Not just a passing remark but a veiled search for an explanation as to what had just happened there.

[i_rule_me]

Watching Paige shed her skin confirmed it for David. This was Paige "Husk" Guthrie, though not the same one who taught at the Jean Grey School, and obviously a remnant from the first reality he'd ever created. David disconnects himself from Clnk, causing the radar dish on his head to disappear.

"I've always wondered, does it itch when ya do that wee sheddin' trick?"

David can feel the weight behind her question. She thinks he's...connected, under orders from god-knows-who, to fool her into thinking that she was truly free. He shrugs.

"Sometimes, but I'm not a subscriber. More like I'm stealin' wi-fi ta fight The Man. Tryin' ta undo the damage that's been done."

Though he's not going to directly admit responsibility, he's taking it just the same. Trying to do some good, to make up for a lifetime of mistakes.

[apocashrriipp]

[She watches the satelite vanish with unguarded curiosity. She felt she did well not to reach out and grab his head to get a closer look. Whilst she was never given much opportunity to spend extensive amounts of time around technology of computers and things of a similar nature, she had never been able to quell her intrigue. In a morbid way, it would have been a fulfilling experience to take the thing apart and put it back together again. Unfortunately, she is pulled away from her curiosities, something he said hanging in the air, demanding she pay it more heed.]

Wait. You've always wondered?

[For a moment, a streak of panic shoots through her. Is he supposed to be someone she knows? Whilst she is aware that she had ghosts in her memories, things that dance out of her line of sight just as she nears them. She's also aware that 'alternative versions' of people are perfectly possible; the last time she had been here she had been subjected to one such anomaly, as mind blowing as it had been. She is cautious, regarding David with some trepidation.]

Have we met?

[She never had been comfortable with the concept of people knowing her when she has no recollection of them. It made her feel exposed.]

[i_rule_me]

Well, now he's gone and tipped his hand, hasn't he? David can sense the panic is Paige's mind, so he decides to just be done with it. He takes a deep breath, and begins his explanation.

"Not directly, but...well...I'm not exactly sure how ta say this, but...the reason you've had such a miserable time o' things is...because o' me."

He holds his hand up before Paige can say anything, so that he can continue.

"See...thing is, I've more powers in my li'l pinky than most do in their whole body, an' among those powers is the ability ta change reality. I...went back in time about a decade ago, because I thought I could change history for the better. Only problem is...I stepped on a pretty big bleedin' butterfly, an' it brought the world you live in into bein'."

He sighs, and pinches the bridge of his nose.

"I know who you are, because I'm the reason you exist. My name's David Haller, I'm...the only son of Charles Xavier, an' I killed him, tryin' ta make the world a better place. You exist because I failed."

David braces himself, all other defenses down, prepared for Paige to hit him, for revealing the fact that he was the origin of her misery.