10085/Westchester By Night: Hell Hath No Fury

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Westchester By Night: Hell Hath No Fury
Date of Scene: 12 February 2022
Location: Somewhere in Westchester, parts unknown...
Synopsis: The mutants of Xavier's are captured by their vampire enemies, but not everything is at it seems. After the Final Death of Severina the Scourge, The Malefactor needs a new vampire bride and he has the perfect one in mind. The mutants break up the wedding, but Jubilation is presented with a Kobayashi Maru situation and agrees to marry The Malefactor at a new ceremony next week. Remy LeBeau is mistakenly seated on the groom's side and blends in a little too easily.
Cast of Characters: Jubilation Lee, Emma Frost, Noriko Ashida, Divine, Tabitha Smith, Rogue, Jean Grey, Bobby Drake, Remy LeBeau




Jubilation Lee has posed:
    It's been a couple weeks since the Malefactor sent his three vampire brides to request the return of his book from Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters. Unknown to anyone there, the book was being held by a student at the school, Jubilation Lee, who took it for her own purposes. Unfortunately for the Malefactor, his brides did not return with the book and one did not return at all. Nefertiti the Scourge, his muscle, met her Final Death that night at the hands of the half-Kryptonian and Clemencia the Seer got a taste of Bobby Drake's mutant blood. The Malefactor and his three -- wait, TWO -- vampire brides are not done with the mutants of Xavier's.

    ...

    The Recreation Room at Xavier's is in a state of disarray since its recent... remodeling. Much of the debris has been cleaned up, moved, etc., but there's still plenty of work to be done and plenty of opportunities to pitch in. Jubilation Lee is doing her part, over by the entertainment center, sorting through all the CDs that have been blasted from their cases. In one hand, she holds her cellphone and in the other she holds a Green Day CD. Reluctantly, she moves it towards her phone, unsure.

    "Where do you stick this thing?" she wonders, calling out to anyone nearby enough to hear her.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma Frost is there for the purposes of 'coordinating' by which we mean standing nearby as things would go on and occasionally making a vague gesture at one of the participants indicative of nothing particularly helpful while taking a sip from a glass of wine in a hand. The wine itself was likely something that was more expensive than the repairs and refurbishing of the rec room would cost. Emma was there simply to indulge herself or to keep an eye on things. Likely more the first..
    But, it was good to be present just in case they found something else that hadn't exploded yet and they needed someone to take it outside the Mansion.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko is throwing a ball up in the air as she lounges on a couch she shoved in through the doors. Up, down, up, down, as little breaks between helping out with other things. She stops when she notices Jubilation trying to find a spot for the disc. "Ha." She shrugs, tosses the ball, and zips off to catch it, not realizing just how much she is 'playing fetch' with herself.

Divine has posed:
Divine did, in fact, kill a vampire bride, and she'd do it again without guilt. They are, after all, trying to hurt the people who are helping her out. That is Not Cool.

In the interests of Helping, the half-Kryptonian is manning a broom, sweeping up random small hunks of debris into piles. Which are swept into bigger piles, and then bigger. She's quiet, keeping to herself after the ... Incidents at the meeting.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
Every time Tabitha pushes that heavy shed broom to clear more and more debris that seems to drop when it's swept gets a wince. The girl still very much beat from being blasted across the room and almost through the wall. Dressed light, old red jeans, a black tank top covering shoulders and chest and little else to cover the bandages looped around to hold dressings in place from where she landed. The point of impact probably still smells like Tabitha's dried blood in places and a few dark spots of bruising. her hair down, kind of hard to spend time pinning and waxing that mop when shoulders hurt. Chunky black combat boots and a black leather and metal spiky belt doesn't need to hold her pants up. A matching collar around her neck with a little explosion shaped cloud dangling finishing the out fit.

"Sooo, how come we aren't making Hope bust hump on this. Jamie I get. A dying dupe gotta feel painful. God knows it sucked knowing I killed one." she ponders aloud.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue had been helping Remy recover, helping him around the school and keeping him on focus, and hopefully out of trouble.

When she enters the rec room, she immediately makes a bee-line for Jubilee, before she shoulders-up to her.

"I told Remy you're my daughter. Just play along with it." She says in a quiet whisper to the girl before smiling brightly, her hands in the pockets of her dark green hoodie.

She looks around the room then. "Reconstruction goin' okay?" She asks everyone, because she wasn't here for this, so it isn't HER problem!

Jean Grey has posed:
Jean is not spending the evening cleaning up. Cleaning up is what she makes students to do, while reminding them that it builds character and instills a sense of responsibility for their actions!

However, contrary to certain reports, Jean is not a monster. And while she has been in and out of the rec room throughout the day to monitor the progress on things between other school business (the show must go on!) and a visit down to the med bay to check on things there, when she shows up this time it is not merely to make sure everyone is working hard or otherwise scold or 'adult' at them. In fact, she shows up carrying a tray with snacks and drinks, including hot chocolate (tis the season) and cookies. She probably baked them, because she IS just that kind of monster. Authority through smothering kindness and guilt!

There are vegan and gluten-free options.

There is no Jubilee option.

"How's everything go-" Oh, Rogue beat her. "Hmm, looks a lot better than last time at least. Anyway, time for a break. I brought snacks."

Bobby Drake has posed:
One arm still fastened to his side to prevent any extra movements popping the stitches on his unhealing neck wound, Bobby is present in the room but for the moment only a supervisory position. More moral support than anything else. He watches the work in progress, feeling that if he can't actually contribute, he can at least show that he cares by devoting his time to keeping them all ccompany. And who knows maybe someone will want sno cones later.

Remy LeBeau has posed:
Remy is not totally concussed, he's just sorta mostly still concussed. He doesn't stumble around like a dummy anymore, a few steps behind Rogue, but he does periodically have to stop to remember which foot goes first when he's walking. Which might not sound like that big a deal, but it's a big deal. Right, left, left left, is a difficult pattern to keep while walking and anyone who doubts it should try.

He's wearing a pair of sweats, a t-shirt, a pair of glasses, and a deck of cards. Entering the Rec room with Rogue, if behind her some now that she's run off to get everyone on the same page of LIES. The deck of cards cuts around itself in one hand, twirls down with his thumb, and slides beneath. Shuffling as he walks and finds a place to sit. Not because the room's spinning either.

He's not spinning, you're spinning.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Hey, Bobby, how you feeling?" Jubilee asks after walking over to him. "Sorry it didn't work. I don't know. Maybe it only works on my own." She shrugs. "We'll figure it out." Bobby's neck bite, courtesy of Clemencia the Seer, has not been healing properly and Jubilee's attempts to do the 'normal' thing that she can do -- lick it away -- not only didn't work... but was also very awkward. Just bringing it up at all sends Jubilation into a spiral of awkward. She suddenly turns and moves far, far away from Bobby Drake.

    "Got it, got it," Jubilee whispers back at Rogue, grinning a fangy smile at the opportunity to play a prank on Remy LeBeau. As soon as Remy walks in, Jubilee tilts her head and announces loudly, "Hey, mom, can I have my allowance now?" She turns to smile at Rogue.

    While the mutants busy themselves in the Recreation Room, a group has assembled themselves in a line just outside the iron gates of Xavier's. Each of them is wearing a costume:

        * One wears a light blue wig, parachute shorts, and gray mittens.
        * The second is a red-head with green eyes, wearing a simple turtleneck.
        * The third has an oversized brown wig with a skunk line.
        * The next one wears a long trenchcoat and holds a pack of playing cards.
        * The fifth person is wearing a homemade Power Girl costume.
        * The next wears ripped jeans and black lipstick.
        * The seventh person is wearing roller blades and dark sunglasses.
        * The eight person in the line, a blonde, wears a long, white robe with white, fur trim.
        * The last in the line is lazily wearing a Vanilla Ice t-shirt.

    Everyone lined up stares through the gates in a daze. They don't talk. They don't move. They just... stare. Silently. Out from the shadows comes nine silhouettes, one for each of the costumed visitors. The moonlight reflects against each of their nine blades, held horizontally across the throats of the dazed, helpless trick-or-treeters. In unison, the nine blades slice across nine necks and nine bodies hit the dirt. As soon as they do, the light in the Recreation Room is extinguished and the familiar smells and feelings of freshly varnished wood are replaced with the dank and cold of subterranean cement.

    Absolute darkness.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma Frost is about to say something intended to be trite right when there seems to be a power outage? She's caught by surprise and almost initially goes to ask if this is some kind of trick, in which case it's animpressive one.. Right as she quickly evaluates the surprise that will no doubt be coming off of everyone.
    "I believe that someone has wished to make a point about the effectiveness of the security of the residence." she would go to immediately try to start sweeping around telepathically and moving to try and spread her consciousness out to pick up whatever she could. "Divine, please see if you can pick anything up? Don't separate from the group." She might give more instructions, but she wasn't the senior person present and her association with the team wasn't quite a full member. So she goes to defer to one of the others while trying to sweep about in whatever direcion she could telepathically while going to then send a mental message to Jean and Rogue <<We should likely try and keep in ocntact mentally>> Emma unsure as to what had happened, but hiding it well as she would press down her surprise.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
The pile of crap she sweeps up gets pretty sizable and after one more sweep Tabby has to pause. Tired and still healing and sadly sober, there's a pout at Jean for making her do this and an almost fake cry but it's mostly just grumbles as looks at the trails of clean floor she and Divine leaves as they gradually get wider and wide,

Seeing Remy come in gets a frown and a facepalm. "See if I tried that it'd never work. Cause I'm in a room with psychics. So difficult to goo..."

Then there's darkness and extra cold cement and a weird sounding "Fuuuuuuuuuck?" as she looks around in squinty darkness and then just solves that problem. A tiny liittle arcing stream of plasma not much but enough to start getting bearings as light slowly returns and recvceals the prsiony location.

"Guys, umm, the fuck, the fuck just happened Why does this feel like jail? I haven't done jail in like years." she says a little woried. A lot worried as she tries to see if she's even alone or not.

Divine has posed:
One moment, Divine is pushing a broom. The next, it's very dark, and dank and cold. Not that the cold really bothers her. She frowns in the darkness. Her eyes start to glow red, shedding a little light for everyone as she runs her hands on the wall.

She then punches the shit out of it, cracking and crumbling it. Not that it lets them escape at all. Her expression shifts to furious, but Jean and Emma can tell otherwise.

She's starting to panic.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko only catches the tail end of what hijinks Rogue and Jubilation are pulling off, so she's observing from afar when she suddenly feels something very familiar to her.  She thrashes and sparks, her mind battling with being trapped, again.  "Jubes," she breathes heavily, and then starts a constant crackle in the palm of her gauntlet to look for her just to confirm what she already feels in that amulet around her neck...and what she already fears.  "Guys Jubes is gone...She's alone and scared."  That certainly takes Noriko's mind off of her own inner turmoil.  The normally sassy teen doesn't sound so sassy.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue reaches for one of Jean's delicious cookies. When she comes back she's about to put it in her mouth when she sees Remy, hears Jubilee and speaks up. "Not until you get your god damn chores done, you layabout!" She says loudly, sternly.

And then everything goes to ... a basement?

Rogue's eyebrows go up, her green pupils darting around, as she holds the cookie in her mouth.

"Mmf." She says, before biting it in half and looking behind her.

"God, what the hell is it now?" The southern girl says, as the others are all reacting around her in the dark too...

Jean Grey has posed:
Jean has woken up in some strange places in her life. Like, for instance, on an alien science planet in another galaxy after being dead.

Vampire jail is STILL a new one, though!

However, Jean doesn't simply wake up (if they were ever asleep), or simply come to be in her new surroundings as the rest. Like everyone, she slowly returns to her senses. But at the point where things really 'click' back into place, she has a different sort of reaction. There's a brief pulse of something, and then she gives a half-gasped hissing sort of shriek, bringing her hands up to the sides of her head (if the cookie tray came along, well... now they're all on the floor and RUINED!). But clearly, they're beyond her concern. "No, nonono..."

In the process of struggling with whatever it is, she drops to her knees on the cold concrete. Now her eyes are closed, almost clenched shut. If anyone were expecting her to snap to command, well...

Bobby Drake has posed:
"What the -- " Bobby exclaims as he is suddenly in the dark. He quickly starts to ice up, those nearest him probably feeling the chill. Then he stops, and sighs. "Damnit."

He waits for his eyes to adjust as his ice form melts away slowly, leaving just...Bobby.

Remy LeBeau has posed:
This is where it's good to be concussed.

When the Rec room is bathed in complete darkness, the Cajun leans forward in what was a chair, but could be god knows what now, and looks around. "Is dis a mental break brought on by minor brain damage or is everyone suddenly in da dark?" He wonders aloud, fiddling around blindly with a hand waving side to side in front of him. "Everyone calm down, probably just a fuse. I go check it." The door out to the foyer is that way, so Remy goes that way.

Nevermind that it smells like Ted Bundy's bathroom in here.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
The plasma light source is swirled around Tabitha in slow orbiting circles like a broken hula hoop leaving a contrail of crackly flame. There's a look for the door and then look to the others as she staarts making out shapes and sights in the cell more clearly.

The plasma flame increase just enough so the dull light can be made use of by everyone like a nice floating torch. Luckily it's pre-sploded or maybe a constant state of minisplode. Not like it could do more than singe an eyebrow.

"Sooooo we're in a cell. The one day I had to not put my hair up. Had to leave a tool kit in my damn jacket!" It's hanging on a non destroyed chair back in the wrecked room. Pouty annoyed Tabitha.

"Umm, Remy? We're in lock up. If anyone has a bobby pin, weeee need it! Aaaand maybe fast cause I don't like seeing Jean like this and I don't wanna the boss of us. Nori, we'll find her 'kay!" she says and starts pacing and looking at others and the cell around them At least she's spreading light.

"I can't keep this light going either." she points out nervously.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilation bends at the waist and dry heaves. Teleportation and portals has never agreed with her, even in life. When she comes back up, she finds herself alone. Compared to the others, her cell is leagues better. It's not dark and it doesn't smell like Ted Bundy's bathroom. The decorations are antique and ornate. There are electric candelabras on the walls, intricate tapestries made of deep reds and golds, and even a Louis XV bench upholstered in red velvet.

    "This... is, like, Frasier fancy," she mutters. It's the first thing her brain musters before it realizes that she's alone. "Nori..." Jubilee whispers, wide-eyed. Jubes runs over to the heavy, wooden door and turns the knob -- locked. She bangs her hand against it. "Hey! Hey! Is this because of that time I got a cup for water at McDonald's and filled it with Sprite!? I had a GOOD REASON!" Jubes puts her back to the door and slides down it and onto her butt. "...Water sucks," she mutters to herself. "...Though, to be fair, Sprite does, too." She kind of lost her taste for it. And everything else, too.

    Elsewhere, Clemencia the Seer and Severina the Necromancer are issuing costumes and wigs to another group of humans in a daze. "We must hurry, sister," Clemencia sings, dancing lazily in a little circle. "The birds are singing, they sing to me. Your magics are waning..."

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma Frost would go to brace herself upright, taking a quick evaluation. Her telepathy seems to not be particularly useful, and she's getting a sense that the same thing is true for the others. "Divine, breathe. We're here together." She would look at hte rest of the team, then jog over to the side of Jean. "Ms. Grey?" She would offer and then quickly try and get a feel for what was going on, and without her telepathy not being quite aware of what laid beyond the room.
    Looking to Rogue with a 'do you wish to take charge or shall I'? Able to faintly maintain a mental link with the others, even if extremely weak and going to call out, "Everyone, status report if you don't mind." Her voice softer here than usual; they had a few injured with them and harshness would make the situation worse.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"You know who I am.  Jubilation is missing and no one can get out," Noriko scowls at Emma.  Is it Emma's fault that Noriko's thinking of other times she was kidnapped?...Well yes.  Will Noriko hold it over Emma's head?  It feels healthy right about now.  "I can feel Jubes.  She's still alive.  She's just not here."  Her eyes twitch over toward Jean and she rushes over to provide visibility.  "Yeah she's effed up," only she doesn't say effed.

"Tabby can't you blast us out of here?"  Noriko looks around for the other young woman.  "Maybe if we sling everything we've got at once..." she posits.

Divine has posed:
When even her brutally strong punch barely cracks the concrete, Divine is, yes, internally freaking out. Given her relative age, it's no surprise that nothing has been able to hold her. No one has really tried. He draws deep, calming breaths as she tries to come back down to some kind of baseline.

"It's too tight in here. I'm not strong enough," she rambles. "That doesn't make sense, I'm always strong enough."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue is not far from the doorway herself, and when others start to react like that episode of The Office where Dwight shouted 'Fire' and lit a trash can on fire in the hallway, Rogue adds to the chaos. She raises up her right leg and just Sparta kicks the door!

Thud.

"Ow...." The Belle whines as she takes a step back then, and puts one hand on the wall that Divine just punched. "What the fu..." She stops when she sees Jean.

"Jean?" She asks, stumbling toward the redhead. "What the hell is this now?"she asks, crouching beside Jean, to put her hands on the others shoulders. Her eyes go to find Remy. "Can you pick that lock?" She asks the Cajun while Emma is doing sensible things.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
Tabby looks at the women and their hair mostly for anything that looks like a metal pin. Then she just swears because of course everyone has perfect hair that behaves way better than Boom-Boom.

"I'm up Emma. Tired as hell just making light. Nori. I feel wiped. Like I blew up a tank wiped. Don't think I could even blow the locks or we'd be out already. I can try though but it'll be dark again, trade off." she says and looks down at herself then the door. She has a belt. It even has a normal square buckle. Which means a metal pin a couple inches long and a little bend where it hooks leather notches.

"But maybe we don't have to!: she states and begins undoing and unlooping the belt, unsnagging spikes against red denim loops before it's free. Now to put it in the hands of someone better at lockpicking than she is.

"Remy, Rogue I dunno can we get him picking locks?" she asks and holds out the belt, latch pin thingy out.

Luckily while her output levels are way down. Boom-Boom's fine control recently earned stays so the plasma light swirls and hovers freely to let folks see a little better.

Jean Grey has posed:
Jean remains incapacitated for a few moments longer, apparently quite disconnected from whatever is happening around them, or focused on some other aspect of it. Whatever is happening to her...

Well, eventually it stops. So that's good, right?

The full on face-clutching ends, although Jean keeps one hand there, rubbing at her temple, as the other hand falls to the concrete to steady her. Although when Emma joins her, and then Rogue, she's happy to reach out and use them both as braces to stand back up. "Ugh. Sorry. I'm- I think I'm OK. Whoever did-, whatever is happening, my uh, _other half_ is not a fan. In a big way. She wanted to, well..." Sometimes, its better to lose the battle and win the 'not have your planet incinerated as collateral damage.'

Slowly, a little shakily, she makes it up to her feet. "I think I got control of things in time. But what's- what's happening?" Of the conversation in the background, Jubilee's name stands out. "Shit. Ok, that's- starting to make sense. Let me-" Now, instead of just holding her head, she moves those fingers into her traditional mind-focusing posture, and... "-I can't feel her. Or, really, anything."

Remy LeBeau has posed:
This could have all been an illusion brought on by head trauma for what Remy knows. It's fair to assume that in a mansion full of students, one of them could cause some alterations in perception and that he, with his rattled brain, just sees some weird Nightmare on Elm Street stuff. Calming words aside, his attempt to walk out the door that he is, at least at first, certain is just the door out of the Rec Room, are met with a completely locked door. "Huh..." Palm flat against it, barely visible in the glow of Tabi's globe.

The belt held out to him is taken and the pen worked off from the loop. His toothpick, one of those metal ones, is pulled from the corner of his mouth to use as a latch link. "Oy." Said to Rogue, who he hears somewhere in the gloom. He eyes the lock, kneels down infront of it, and does what Remy's do best. "Baby I gotcha money, doncha worry.." In fairness, this probably isn't that strange a situation for the Cajun.. and if we're being 100% truthful with ourselves, this probably isn't even the first dank basement Remy has ever been remanded. "Dis is what I never get about kidnappers: Never skimp on da locks to your cell." Seriously, this probably isn't the first time Remy's been captured by VAMPIRES.

He's seen some shit.

The door to the cell opens onto a hallway full of doors, but there's light out there, with one door at the very far end of the hall. He peeks out, then waves over his shoulder for everyone to follow him. "Dis way." How could even possibly know that.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Ah, but Remy LeBeau has it all wrong! This isn't a kidnapping at all. It's something far, far worse...

    In her own cell, Jubilee has already tried her powers. She can't seem to generate any fireworks strong enough to do anything but lightly scorch the door. Time to improvise. Jubilation stations herself on the wall opposite the door and claps her hands. She runs at it, as fast as she can, and hurls her shoulder into it. She bounces off and onto the floor, rolling back just shy of where she started. "That is some old world craftsmanship," she mutters, staring up at the ceiling, in no hurry to get up. Maybe she'd have to be smarter about this? Maybe brute force just isn't going to work out.

    "This is just like that escape room at the mall!" she decides, suddenly moving to search the room. Drawers are opened, objects retrieved. "Holy shit," she mutters, staring at a small pile of amethyst necklaces, rings, and bracelets. Every one of them has an amethyst stone. She looks up at the wardrobe, approaches, and opens it next. Her eyes go wide.

Emma Frost has posed:
As the group would spread out, Emma Frost would note sourly, "Given we've been so happily invited, there's inevitably somethign haead of us. And likely we'll see just how much we pay to those self defense lessons that we're supposed to take." Emma's going to position herself to the front if need be where she can help uspport Jean if she needs it. While going to shhh to Divine <<We'll be fine. Don't panic. We'll get our way out of here>> Even with the relative weakness of her powers, within line o fsight she could at least send some minimal communications.
    Her again deferring to Rogue on organizing the group unless Jean seemed rallied enough for the task. Glancing at the others.. Not that she really could in the dim, dark light even with her eyes adjusted.. but trying to make it seem like seh was in control and knew what seh was doing.

Bobby Drake has posed:
Following along with the group, Bobby is notably taciturn while the others engage in chatter. He keeps to the middle of the pack. He is quietly testing out his ice powers, frosting over his free hand and arm, and then sighing a bit while releasing and letting it go.

Divine has posed:
Remy gets the door open! That is a start to Divine's mindset getting better. She doesn't force her way out, but waits her turn, just glancing at Emma after the mental message. She just nods once.

She seems less panicked, but she still isn't thrilled. At least until she starts to feel her powers begin to come back. The half-Kryptonian considers bringing the whole structure down when she's back to full strength.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko practically leaps past Remy as soon as he has the door open.  She bursts out of the cell and just goes where Remy was indicating.  Either she saw his body language tip her off or she's following her nose, so to speak.  "I'll let you guys know if there's something bad coming," she explains her eagerness away...as if Noriko was ever so helpful all the time.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
"I know right, where's the restraints? Like seriously, chairs, chains. Someone's messing with out powers right. Think they'd keep us held down?" Tabby says and grins to remy when the master thief gets the door open. Sure she could have done that but she also doesn't have the speed to crack a new lock like Gambit.

Once in the hall the younger of the blonde women winces and looks over thhe shoulder. "I'm gonna need to fill a jacuzzi with antiseptic and soak for like a week after this. That room stunk." she says and looks at Jean for some suspicious reason.

Letting others take lead properly she follows everyone out, slowly. She's still very much fresh from going through the wall. The bandages showing a little more red where she's been thrown about, taped up, then thrown around again.

"Nori, don't split the party!" she stage whispers to the speedster and then hangs her head.

"This is gonna suck! Trap?"

Rogue has posed:
Rogue helps Jean stand up, then keeps at her side as she watches everyone watch Remy with his lock picking skills. She grins when she hears the lock twist. "And this means Remy gets a little less shit from everyone for awhile, I think." She announces to her cell mates before everyone is piling out of the room together. She, of course, pats the Cajun on his back. "Thatta boy." She says to him with a big grin before her eyes go about the hallway with all the doors.

"Maybe these other cells need t'be opened too? There could be captives in them too." She notes, glancing at Bobby. "Are your powers back?" She asks him, since his are a little easier to note returning than most!

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    The door at the end of the long hallway is opened from the other side. A tall, pale vampire dressed like an 18th century majordomo walks in. Upon seeing the mutants in the hallway, his bland expression remains unchanged. He is completely unfazed by the apparent escape. "Good evening," he drolls. "I am Aldebrand the Castellan. I presume you'd like to use the, ehem, lavatories... or whatever you do... before we begin...?" His tone suggests mockery. Behind him, a group that could very well be a retinue of ten vampire guards march in...

    Meanwhile, out in front of Xavier's Mansion, paramedics are trying to bring life back into nine people bleeding out in the cold night.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma Frost would tense over as the man would approach. Not having a great idea as to who or what he was. But having some semblance of her powers, or at least small jolts of them. She would go to try and just press into the mind of the man. Trying to if she could at all just push into his consciousness a sense of overwhelming satisfaction over and to play up his sense ofs uperiority. It was natural, so hopefully easier to assert while she was weaker and not having an idea of what he was up to.

So, hopefully pressure on his mind to get him to be so smug and arrogant as to think them all neutralized and beneath him, hopefully to assert his superiority and assume himself so much better that he had no reason to even try and be aggressive to the group if she could.

Divine has posed:
VAMPIRE. Divine, feeling her strength start to come back before it ebbs again, moving to stand, at the very least, in front of Emma. Even with her powers waned, she's still probably tougher than Emma given her build and size alone.

She grits her teeth, staring the majordomo down. "Begin what?" She asks, trying to will her powers back and pretend to not be worried at all.

Jean Grey has posed:
"I was gonna chew him out for breaking out of medbay to come and join us while still half-concussed," Jean admits to Rogue, humor in her tone despite the relative weakness of her voice. She takes full advantage of the support her friend offers, putting some extra weight on her shoulder while she gets her own sense of balance, and sense of self in general, back. Her lips reveal a small smile. "But I guess he gets a free pass on this one, huh?"

Because she's still relying on support, there's no rush to join those at the front of the escape as they make it out into the hallway beyond. Ahead, someone is talking.

And as he does there's another... something. Probably no one is looking back, but her eyes flash for a moment, and her hand on Rogue clutches into the material on her shoulder. "Nnnnnngh. What's happening? I can't quite, she's there again-"

Meanwhile, the 'clock' for those people at Xavier's is ticking, and she can, in some sense, feel it. The question is which way?

Remy LeBeau has posed:
"Whoa, simmer down speedy.." Remy doesn't bother reaching for Nori, she's well past him before he realizes and trying to grab her would be moot. The toothpick goes back between his lips, along the inside of his cheek, and he lifts his sunglasses to lay on the back of his neck since it's already so dark in here anyways. "Trap." He agrees with Tabi as if he's pretty well sure there's something horrible up ahead.

He can feel his powers returning, one of the cards in the deck he'd been one handed shuffling slides up between his fingers to glow a crackling magenta. Held between two extended fingers, it flicks back down ontop of the pack with the energy dissipating away. The thief of the party glances around in a full turn, which ends with him facing Franz Ferdinand.. His fingers slap against Tabitha's upper arm in a classic, 'hold my beer' motion, "Dis is a Vampire the Masquerade convention isn't it? Ya know, back home, I accidentally stumbled into a group of these LARPing weirdos an' dey actually turned out to be pretty hard partiers. Besides, your Victorian Era drip is..." He kisses his fingers and flowers them out with a moaw. "Needa get me intouch wit yer tailors. Cus I fuck wit it. Hard." The Cajun's natural match smarm with equal levels of smarm. All with his best, most very charming, smirk.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko comes to a dead stop in front of the vampire.  Her brain rifles through her most recent memories of what she read in VAMPYRE, of the lineages.  Castellan.  "What, so we don't piss and shit ourselves when you drain us?" So much for diplomacy.

The speedster's eyes narrow cooly at the vampire, her chin lifting an imperious millimeter.  "Where is Jubilation Lee?"  Nori doesn't dare tip off this vampire as to who they really have, what Jubilation's lineage is.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
Tabby frowns as a vampire decides to say hello and its not Jubilee. Then there's like a dozen or so more in front of her. This is not a happy occasioan.

"Trap, yep trap!" The little plasma flame she has floatiing around her flickers and seems to get a little brighter.

"Don't know bout the bathroom but I could do with some Skittles and a Red Bull? No? Pretty shitty hospitality huh guys!" Boom-Boom says and shifts her weight into a guard stance. The vampirees can probably hear Tabitha's heart rate spiking. Even if her powers might be waxing and waning. In her injured state she's still not full strength. Which leaves the blonde pyromaniac mostly front. "Good thing I peed before I came here." she states. "Stupid brain shoulda left me concussed but noo, scrambled is the defaults and it's like Tabby, come clean up your mess!" she grumbles. "Jean, this is a 'You suck' moment. Still love you though, just Eff Why Eye!"

Rogue has posed:
Rogue just glances over at Jean, but stays there for her to lean on if needs be before she too looks forward at the man that comes to greet them. With a few more signs of powers coming back, the Belle flexes her left hand, squeezing her muscles and thinking about what that guy's nose would look like if it were wrapped around his face.

But ultimately, she just spares a glance at Remy, then back to Jean and back forward again.

She's biding her time.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Aldebrand stares blankly at Divine, totally non-plussed by the display of her blunt teeth. "Would madame care to freshen up or not?" he asks, one eyebrow rising. He seems annoyed, if nothing else. Tabby gets her own moment in the moonlight, so to speak, as Aldebrand makes a sarcastic smile in her direction.

    "I'll see what we can do," is his answer to the demand of Red Bull and Skittles. It's not looking good. His attention snaps to Noriko, though, giving her a moment of his curiosity. Just a moment.

    "Miss Lee is not to be disturbed. No one may see her before we start," he insists, his eyes lidding lazily, as though this whole affair is boring him.

    The Ice Queen gets a funny look at first, like someone might have when trying to understand why a dog is running around in circles. And then he scowls, turning to look at one of the ten vampires at his back. "Tell Lady Severina that our honored guests are starting to regain their abominable gifts," he commands.

    The vampire moves, perhaps to go and report that little detail, if not stopped...

Emma Frost has posed:
As Emma would only be slowing the man and he would be mostly just throwing off her attempt at subverting him.. Well.. He would be slowed and would now have Emma's full attention. THe other vampires were.. Likely feral ones based upon the reports that she had read of the first attack on the Mansion and Ms. Lee's thorough briefing.
    Noriko, please immobilize him and bring him back to us. With enough parts left intact we can get information from him as we need it." Noriko had a rather well deserved dislike of Emma. but hopefully on this particular point the younger girl might have some instructions given that she was more than happy to go laong with!

Jean Grey has posed:
The hand at Rogue's shoulder squeezes. "I can feel it, they have more... people. People they're using, kinda like those dolls..." It's a hard concept to explain.

Simultanesouly, Jean is basically fighting the battle everyone else is... from two directions. One side, there's magic suppressing the powers she, and the rest of them, rely on. On the other... she has a wholly different source of power, all too eager to 'help.' Asserting one, while holding control over the other... one could say it is a whole THING.

Yet for a moment, she finds a moment of balance on the knife's edge between them. Enough to grasp her abilities without letting her dark passenger take her for a ride. Handily, even a moment of Jean's powers are quite handy!

However, she doesn't use it to smite the Vampire. They're notoriously hard to kill. But she can give her allies an idea of what's going on. And thus, lifting one hand (the other is still affixed to a certain Belle), she reaches out...

And one of the doorways along the hallway, presumably to another cell like the one they were inhabiting, spontaneously rips free of its hinges and flies free, crashing against the wall on the other side.

She slumps a bit. "All the rooms, they have, more of us..."

Tabitha Smith has posed:
Boom-Boom might not have her fulll power. But she's not entirely entirtely out of tricks. Plasma swirls and coaleces around and between her fingers almost like the sort of hand gestures someone would use to cast a spell there's a ball about the size of a baseball. The biggest she can manage for now but there's a grin at the vampire and his entourage and a really loud thought yelling enough for Emma and Jean to both pick up. <<BrightBOOM. Eyes!>> she mentally warns and hopefully it's passed to the group as the ball of energy flies at the group of maybe feral vampires.

"Tick... Tick..."

BOOM! Or at least BANG. It's a flashbang, all noise and light.

It probably sucks ass for enhanced senses. tabby has to clench her eyes shut to block the light the moment it goes off above the vampires heads but soon she's back on the ball and followiung where Jean blew a door open and sees people dressed like them. "That's nice cosplay but I bet they didn't get your con. We'll get this fixed. Ummm, sorry." she says with an increasingly goofy tone before she turns to start hurling actual explosives at any vampires coming near her or the door. Enough force to maybe knock a body back but how much damage that can do to a head is a different matter.

The level of squishy is different for monmsters after all.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"Does that mean we'll see her after we start eviscerating people?"  When Emma issues her order, Noriko looks over her shoulder at the woman and a crackling smirk forms on her lips.  "No problem."  There are what, 11 vampires?  No big deal.  Sure.

"You're going to tell me where she is."  Look she didn't say she was going to go and see Jubilation before they 'start' whatever.  Noriko darts for Aldebrand the Castellan.  "Aldebrand.  Yes.  The crusty cur to the royals."

Noriko looks over toward one of the open doorways now to see their B-rated twins, but her focus is on the vampire and evading his lackeys.

Remy LeBeau has posed:
"Fine, keep your tailoring secrets." Remy says under his breath, genuinely kind of miffed. He falls back a step to get beside Rogue and Jean, "Do you know how good I look in one of those frilly coats?" Said in an almost sad tone, shaking his head. His hands sit on his hips, "Whatever happens here.. As God above is my witness..." He nods at the Vampire. "I'm leaving here wit dat coat."

Aside from really wanting to add that to his wardrobe, Gambit is waiting for someone to make the first move. He's just doing with with a playing-card tucked against his palm ready to hurl it one of those red shirts back there. Then Jean's does Jean stuff and Remy steps up to take a look inside at K-Mart them. His tongue runs dry across his equally dry lips, looking from the budget CGI X-Men to the Vampires who are using them, "Okay.. I can handle being teleported down into Dexter's murder dungeon.. And I'm use to smug 18th century Plantation owner looking down on me... But THIS is what you tink I look like?" Motioning at a stick man of a guy with painted on stubbled and a sloppy brown wig. "That's a fruit of the Loom t-shirt.. I am very offended."

The card he'd been clutching to his side is thrown with expert precision. His arm goes from right to left across his body to send it twirling in the air with a bright magenta glow right through the sudden SNAP FLASH of Tabitha's Flashbang. Aimed right for one of those Red Shirt Underworld Wannabe Cosplayers.

Divine has posed:
As the vampire starts to run off as ordered, Divine just looks at him. The air starts to ripple with a heat haze in the direction she stares.

The creature's clothes ignite. Someone, somewhere, must be doing something right as she feels her strength beginning to return. Her feet leave the ground as the glow in her eyes fades. Her attention turns to Aldebrand.

The glow starts to come back.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue catches the door that is blown off the hinges of that cell. She just raises her right hand up and stops it in its tracks. Her seventh sense power alerted her to its path, and she stops it dead.

Then, as the madness starts to break out, Rogue just shoves the door at one of the foes before her, before she dances back from the bombs going off.

"Well. At least this isn't in the rec room." She mutters, before seeing Remy tossing cards. "Lets keep our shirts on this time, huh?" She asks him with a quick smirk before shee too catches sight of their knock-off versions, which gets a quick frown.

Remy LeBeau has posed:
"No promises." Remy says matter of factly about losing his shirt. Because it's still early.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Of course you'll see Miss Lee, child," Aldebrand promises. "You'll all see her." He brings both of his hands -- claws, really -- in front of his waist and clasps them together in a very dignified way. Precise. Rehearsed. "Now, if you'll all please follow me..." Aldebrand turns his back on Noriko and the others, just in time for all hell to break loose.

    A hallway erupts in a cacophony of bright lights and the echoes of snarling, hissing vampire guards. When the eyes adjust to the TabbyFlashBang, Aldebrand's retinue has scattered. One of them lies on the ground, reaching a pale hand towards the ceiling as a charged playing card burns a hole in his chest, right in the center, sending him to wherever vampires go when they die. Another sears into the concrete wall, hissing violently as Divine's eyeblast begins to disintegrate him. The rest of the guards lunge forward, swiping their claws and snapping their fangs at the mutants! This leaves an open doorway, giving Noriko free access to a set of ornate wooden stairs that go up...

    Meanwhile, a K-Mart redhead walks out of one of the holding cells wearing a University of Phoenix t-=shirt. She stares at Jean Grey.

Emma Frost has posed:
The yelling going back and forth as the fighting starts doesn't catch Emma Frost by surprise. She's long since been able to partition her brain in chaos to handle such things. Even as she's going back and forth she can't so much care for her counterpart (?) beyond a.. K-Mart, really? Why couldn't she have standards? Whether or not this is an actual duplicate from another realm or some sort of blood puppet, Emma can't tell. So as the melee erupts and of course Noriko races away, Emma can only look at Jean and let out an emphatic, lightly irritable sigh. Going to try and spread her consciousness out among as many of the 'doppelgangers' as possible to try and if she could get a sense of what had happened from their 'end' of things.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
Boom-Boom, hurt and worn out and lower power is breathing pretty heavily as she keeps herself at the door where extra possible powerdown murder victims are kept. Occasionally looking back at them. "You know I might have to raid the pile of clothes they got for this." she says and looks over the Tabitha styled girl, or girls. One could have been Jubilee or there could be two just because Taby can be that annoying and killing her as often as possible is just that cathartic.

"Sooo uh, yeah don't mind me babbling. I handle stress really bad sometimes. You guys have any candy or protein energy bars or even some damn xanax. I'll do a line of damn cocaine right now if it'll help us." Scared motormouthing.

Of course it means scared Tabitha is also angry Tabitha so she just guides bomb after bomb. Chunks of vampire gunk fly off till eventually it stays still long enough to finally it's head catches one and it's a popper. Stumbling and falling right as vampire ichor and mess splatter over Tabby in a totally gross Jackson Pollock.

"Ewwwwwwww! How does no one have any fucking SUGAR!" she breathes tiredly but yells loudly while hunching over with hands on knees like she ran a marathon.

Divine has posed:
Divine is, compared to the Mutants she's hanging around with, a filthy cheater. Juiced by the sun, she barely gets tired, sleeps because beds are nice, and eats because food is delicious. Granted, her timeframe before she tires is not as great as, say, Power Girl, but she can go a while. This means she's less tired and winded than some of the others here.

This means, she is fairly fresh as she floats through the air, advancing on the Castellan, looking down on him is a very good impression of Power Girl at her most imperious. "So what's going to happen here," she says quietly. "Is that you are going to give us back Miss Lee, then leads us outside. If you don't, I will rip your limbs off and force you to watch as I incinerate every vampire but Miss Lee in this building, then tear this place down with my bare hands before I prop you up on some East facing rock to watch the sun rise."

She doesn't lift a finger to lay hands on him. Yet.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko is a creature of opportunity.  Realizing grabbing a royal lapdog would do her no good or is she just seeing the chance to escape as their possible /only/ chance.  Or maybe she only cares about finding Jubilation.  Who knows.

The speedster shoots off up the wooden steps without even really setting off a squeak.  She'll be back before anyone even notices, she imagines, leaving without a word.  Sometimes, there are opportunities one can't wait to ask for permission to take, byways that a moment's hesitation can mean the difference between freedom and compromise.  Besides, everyone seems to be doing great, Noriko determines as she briefly runs up the stairs backwards to make sure she's not leaving everyone to their doom.

Jean Grey has posed:
After the effort it requires to exercise her telekinesis, Jean slumps, once again relying on Rogue's support. Well, momentarily. Until everything goes sideways.

In her condition, Jean can't do much to help with the sudden vampire brawl. She staggers over to a nearby wall to lean on, giving Rogue her mobility. What she can do is try and pick up on the slack where it comes to command and control, since things are getting a bit chaotic. "Get the people out," she calls, somewhat breathlessly. "Focus on them. Before they hurt any more of them, to try and weaken us." A notion which is no doubt quite horrifying to the heroic sensibilities!

Indeed, she finds herself looking at her own counterpart. The inherent joke doesn't elude her, although considering her present circumstances battling wills with the t-shirt's namesake, one might forgive her the lack of any quip in commentary.

However, a brawl isn't a safe place. One vampire picks HER, leaping onto her. It bares its fangs, leans to bite her-

-and disintegrates almost instantly, exploding to dust almost as if ashed by the sun.

"Enough, enough- FOCUS! The people. Get the people." And now she's shouting, perhaps just assuming the head Vampire can hear her even where it has walked off. "If you want to talk, talk, but let these people go. Let Jubilee go. You can't negotiate in good faith while holding someone in chains." She winces, eyes squeezing shut, and re-opening. "Maybe you feel justifed. Feel like we've meddled with something we don't understand and need to be humbled. But I feel it's only fair to warn you that you're doing exactly the same thing."

It's an interesting threat coming from a woman who looks like she's about to pass out.

Rogue has posed:
% A vampire charges at Rogue, and the Belle just grabs it by the throat, then drops it on its back on to the floor. It kicks and hisses, until she squeezes, and crunches its neck.

Another comes running at her for this horrible thing she just did to its best friend, and with fangs bared, and claws out, it too lunges for Rogue!

The southern gal just picks up that heavy cell door, and swings it upward like a bat!

This, with Rogue's powers, has a result one could possibly expect...

Vampire blood, bones, and body parts, go everywhere, bathing the hallway in gore. It splashes against the walls, it scatters back down the hallway floor, with streaks, streams, and pooling waves that pour out of the bigger chunks of Vampire body left wetly slopping across the ground.

Rogue sees this, as she lowers the door down, then drops it against the wall. "Whoops." She says quietly. "Put more inta that one than I meant..."

But with that said, she turns to check on Jean, then tries to help the weird knock-off 'them' get out!

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Divine's verbal threats -- even her heat vision -- are treated like the buzzing of flies to Aldebrand the Castellan. The Kryptonian's abilities might melt through his lackeys, but the majordomo is another story entirely. He gives her absolutely no more of his attention and instead ascends the wooden stairs at the end of the hall. The door is left open for anyone who cares to follow. It's as though they're being invited up.

    "My dear, Miss Lee is receiving the hospitality appropriate to one of her position," Aldebrand assures Jean. "Come and see for yourself."

    The stairs lead up to an antechamber attached to a massive atrium with marble floors and columns that rise to meet a vaulted ceiling. One one wall, two massive doors lead out into the chilly evening air. The opposite wall is mostly empty except for a heavy wooden door and a large, raindrop-shaped opening that leads into an opulent mausoleum that could rival the Pantheon. Massive domed ceilings, intricately carved and decorated. Instead of serving as a monument to the dead, the main chamber of the mausoleum has been filled with rows and rows of heavy wooden chairs lined with velvet. Each one of them is occupied by a vampire of the highest class wearing their formal wear. These aren't the feral ones forced to be guards and muscle.

    In the atrium, nine dopples are being held at knifepoint by vampire captors behind them. Aldebrand turns to greet anyone coming up the stairs behind them. "I do suggest you behave yourselves..." he adds with a smile, gesturing to the group of dopples and then to the main chamber. There are likely a thousand vampires in there.

    A familiar song begins to ring out from the bells of the mausoleum. It's a song that everyone knows just by the notes. It doesn't need words. It's only played on the most special of days (or, nights in this case). The bells play the notes slowly, allowing them to echo... It's such a familiar song...

    The small wooden door in the atrium opens. Jubilation Lee steps out wearing a long, black dress and a veil.

    Here Comes The Bride.

Remy LeBeau has posed:
It's entirely possible that Remy shouldn't be engaged in fighting vampires, but it's not exactly like he's got much of a choice right? He could claim umbrige, tell them sorry guys, I'm recovering from injuries and see how that plays out.. By their snarling, however, he feels pretty certain it wont be amicable.

So he doesn't bother.

A Vampire rushes at him, as that's what they're want to do, and takes a swipe at his chest only to find there's no Cajun there to hit. He ducks beneath the claws, grabs the undead spawn of satan by the very frilly frock coat, and sends him skittering away.... without his frock coat. Because Remy kept it.

And puts it on after airing out the musk of the dead a with a few jerks of his wrist. Twisting it around his shoulders to see how close in size they are. Now, this is important. Everyone's fighting vampires or trying to save people and Remy is playing dress up.

"Dis look okay?" He asks Rogue. Arms out, "feels a little snug around the shoulders." Arms cross, stretch out... and then turn as the Vampire comes rushing back at him, presumably to get his coat back. Remy ducks, grabs hold of the Guards shirt, and hockey jersey's him. Pulling it up and over his head. Using the leverage to twist the monster around the hallway, smashing his head into the just about every wall he can find.

Emma Frost has posed:
And Emma is getting the yelling coming from Jean, and is rapidly sorting her way through the minds of their disparate doppelgangers. Far, far too many of them for her like. So Emma is going to try as best she can to sort through all of the minds that she could manage, trying to quickly assess their state; heavy injuries, disorientation, concussions, state of restraint, mobility..
    Presuming she's able to do so for each that were not under immediate threat of force she would 'prime the pump' by shooting adrenaline into each of their brains to bring them back to full consciousness. Then from there she would start to puppet each of them, going to if she could maintain physical control of them all and getting them ready to shamble out in an orderly fashion to start to walk along and join with the program. Calling out to Jean as she would casually invade minds, puppet bodies,and maek them her own array of zombies..
    <<I can probably get most of them together and coordinated. Some are under immediate threat however.>> Her going to hopefully fro the ones with knives at their necks just try and see things 'through' them to coordinate.
    Then so long as the rest of the team is permitting it Emma will be sharing sensory information so lon gas her powers would allow it and her engaged attempts. Positions of enemies, vampires, friendlies, puppets, layouts of the area, corrdiros.. Presuming that of course she could maintain all of this while also hopefully keeping a veneer of control over things.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
The worn out blonde girl chuckles as she watches other vampires get pasted with much less effort. Rogue and the door gets and big grin. "They should have knocked." And as she stands a little straighter she winces as her back pings and and bleeds and stings.

"Umm, maybe we should come back after for these people? Like gonna be more vampires up stairs right? Don't wanna endanger folks again." she says with a shrug and visibly regrets it as she falls into step to go back to following folks.

The Influx of tactical information makes Tabby groan, she might not be as concussed as Gambit is but that mich information is still pretty headache inducing.

Upstairs and more hostages and blades at necks where she can see them, the blonde clenches her fists. "I can escort them out if you can get the vamps to drop the knives?" she says to the team and looks back and forth.

And she will if she can, anyone still alive. "I ain't doing more than singing eyebrows right about now! I got one big shot left in the tank."

Noriko Ashida has posed:
It's that song that stops the speedster in her tracks.  She took note of the doppels, but barely gave them enough attention to let anyone know she did.  No.  NO.  Noriko's eyes flood with tears at a /RAPID/ pace and blur her vision, but not before she gets a look at Jubilation in a vampire bride's wedding dress.

"NO!"  Bolts of jagged lightning tear out from Noriko as if splitting out of her.

Should Noriko help save these people?  Of course, Does she?  She leaves the doppels to the heavyweights.  "I'M OBJECTING I OBJECT," she keeps going, interspersed with rapid expletives as she races to try and steal the bride.  NO ONE WANTS TO MARRY A CRUSTY OLD VAMPIRE, WHOEVER THIS GUY IS.  HE DIDN'T EVEN ASK FOR ROGUES' PERMISSION TO MARRY HER!  For shame.  But the problem is, see, Noriko can't really see everything with her eyes full of tears.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue spends a bit of time looking Remy over in his new attire. "I like it." She tells him before she reaches up to the collar. "It is a little tight in the shoulders, but you've been working out, so that's a good thing, right?"

They have a moment, as ever.

"Wait." Rogue says then as she looks up the stairs. "Did you hear a wedding dress?" She asks.

And then she rushes up the stairs, even flying a little to skip stairs.

Once she's up there, and gets a look at whats going on, she just skids to a stop and raises her hands up to press to the sides of her face. "What the... fu...."

She looks back toward the stairs and waves Remy over. "My daughter is getting married, get over here, incase she needs someone to give her away!" She tells the Cajun in his fancy new attire!

Divine has posed:
Divine does not like to be ignored. She follows the Castellan into the antechamber and marvels at it. It's hard not to. She absolutely notices the sacrifices set up, and frowns, making ready to systematicly eliminate the vampires about to do ritual magic to seal their powers. (Starting with the one that would take her powers.)

Noriko kind of messes that up by flailing as Jubilee arrives. It's a nice dress, but she doesn't get the significance.

Jean Grey has posed:
Perhaps the whole 'instant death, no backsies' thing when the first Vampire tries to bite her convinces any remaining frisky, would-be biters in Jean's vicinity to leave her be. Evil minions they may be, but these creatures do have reputations for immortality... so maybe they're not so eager to roll the dice on tossing it away. Especially attacking the person in their group of captives who seems generally non-violent, semi-inclined toward parley, and is walking like she's half dead already.

Or maybe a few more of them get returned to the proper cycle of death and rebirth.

Either way, with one hand still on the wall, Jean limps her way up the hallway in the direction of the departing elder. It takes her a bit. En route, she passes the University of Phoenix coed, and reaches out to lay a hand on her shoulder. "This must seem strange. But we'll get you out of it. That pretty blonde lady is going to gather you and all your friends here, get you somewhere safe... just follow where she leads, and try and keep your head down." Maybe nowhere here is safe, but doing what they can to keep the people from a panic seems paramount.

In no rush to make it upstairs (because she's physically incapable of rushing), Jean nonetheless finally ascends the stairs. There, she discovers the scene of the beautiful bride-to-be, and her very vocally objecting girlfriend. And another set of hostages.

"Look, I told you, we're willing to... come to some kind of agreement here. But we won't be blackmailed..." Her eyes flit between the dopples, and the bride in black. "...and we won't let you force her into anything against her will."

Remy LeBeau has posed:
"Yeah." Remy is still very dejected by the coat, "You see dese guns?" Not appropriate for the situation, Remy. The coat is twisted off and used to matador another vampire rushing at him. It wraps around the undead guards head and then to slam it against a wall. Because Rogue's hearing wedding bells. "Listen, ya know I love ya, chere, but I aint even got you a ring yet..."

Wait no, that IS wedding bells.

And Rogue is rushing upstairs..

So Remy follows. He's not as fast as her though because she's a god damn cheater who can fly and left him to run. He leans against her when he finally makes it up there, chest heaving to catch his breath because those are a lot of stairs.

Where on gods earth he found a Tuxido jacket (one from the 18th century no less) is anyones guess. "Dat'a girl, Jubes." Two fingers stick into the corners of his mouth to send out a sharp whistle. "Lemme know if you need me ta give ya away."

An aside to Rogue, "Never really struck her as da gothy type, but she pulls it off." Slow clapping. He just assumes it's her and Nori's wedding. Because honestly he's still concussed.

Remy LeBeau has posed:
"Lemme try someting." Remy adds, "Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice."

...
.....
.........

"Worth a shot."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Madame, I assure you, Miss Lee is being given the highest possible honor..." Aldebrand is now addressing Jean, who has been sized up as the leader of this little... troupe. He smiles a suspicious little smile. "We will soon be calling her ---" He gets interrupted.

    Noriko's tear-blocked run through the mausoleum sends the undead guests into disarray. Some of them are knocked to the side, taken by surprise as the speedster's velocity is far beyond their own. One of them comes apart at the limbs as Nori literally runs right through him, drenching the speedster in thick, black ichor and rotten blood. And a neck tie. Vampires begin hissing and growling all around.

    In all the chaos, one of the undead ushers approaches Remy, takes a look at his attire and mistakes him for a guest from the groom's side. He motions for Remy to follow him to an available seat.

    Jubilation stares at the massive structure that would be her wedding venue. At her dress. At all the vampires hissing and snarling. She stares. Stares. "What the fu-----!" she screams. "No!" She throws the bouquet of dead roses on the ground. "I'm not marrying you!" Whispers come from all angles. That's the Malefactor. You should show some respect. How dare you. And so on. "I don't care who he is!" Jubilee begins shoving and pushing back at the various handmaidens that begin to swarm her.

    "ENOUGH!" a voice booms.

    It echoes throughout the entire mausoleum and seems to come from everywhere all at once. Every person, living or dead, is suddenly overcome with a desire to obey. That voice belongs to The Malefactor and it commands respect. His silhouette can be seen at the end of the mausoleum, standing there by the altar. "I grow weary of this. Kill them."

    Chaos erupts again. Several of the wedding guests can be heard celebrating that they, in fact, won the bet. Others are gasping with shock. One person, though, screams the loudest. "NO!" Jubilee shouts. She grabs her dress with a tight fist and runs down the aisle. "No! NO! I'll marry you! I'll marry you! Just, just, leave them alone!"

Emma Frost has posed:
How lovely this localized calamity is continuing on and none o fthem are bothering to work together or particularly cooperate well. So Emma goes to focus and narrow her eyes, going to try and get in tontact with Jean and Rogue <<I believe our exit is called for. Presuming Ms. Ashida has the focus to retrieve Ms. Lee, she should best do so and then be on our way>> Given her own experience was that even -with- suggestions Noriko tended to not listen, Emma wouldn't bother in this event to try and contact the girl.
    Then speaking to Divine <<Dear, please delete anything in the room from existence that's trying to stop us or the hostages. I would dearly appreciate it. And I'm thankful you're here>> Appreciation was definitely needed for her personal favorite and best minion. Attempting to keep track of the rest of the team as best she could in the latest incitement of chaos.. Trying to limit the amount of directives she was giving.
    And to Jean's continued state of disoirentation, Emma would offer her own support as best she could, trying to give a mental lifeline if needed. Since she wasn't in the best spot to do any sort of assistance physically. Also not passing along a suggestion to Tabitha to drop the bomb. The girl would do that on her own.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
Tabby is not one fore listening to would be monsters not caring about others peoples copnsent so when the voice booms BOOMS right back.

"Fuck you asshole!" she yells and there's the biiggest bomb she can muster. Basketball sized but it's everything she can throw and it's almost as powerful as what was used to mitgate the explosion in the rec room.

Arm waves and the ball of plasma flies right at the back end of the wedding hall where it can land and detonate. If it can even do anything. Once it's away Tabby is out of steem and she can barely stay on her feet.

"Eat star stuff cockbag! Jubes is with Nori!" she groans with an exhausted but mean look in Boom-Boom's blue eyes.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue glances over at Remy when he starts to mutter Beetlejuice. It makes her grin for a second before the person arrives to escort him to a seat. "What am I, chopped liver?" She asks in her offended southern flavor, with her hands on her hips.

She sees Jean, and the others though, and shakes her head lightly before Jubilee starts to make her run for it.

Rogue exhales, then reaches for a empty chair, and takes off in to the air. "Run, daughter, run! Ya'll can't make my kid marry your freak ass Count Dooku!" She shouts as she lobs the chair at the front of the procession!

"Run for it, Jubilation! I got your back!"

Remy LeBeau has posed:
Never mind Remy, he's a guest of DISTINCTION. Being shown to his seat next to a pretty undead woman who is probably in her 4 or 5 hundreds. "Lovely ceremony." He says with a winning, neigh charming, smile. "Remy LeBeau, from the New Orlean LeBeau's." Offering his hand to kiss her knuckles because he's a gentleman. The beautiful ring she was wearing that he just slipped off her finger is slipped into his pocket. "So who dey get for entertainment at dese tings? This is my first Victorian wedding."

When Chaos breaks out, Remy, every the opertunist, takes this one to rid some of these fine guests of their more expensive looking jewelry. He's got a pool table to pay for. "Yeah! Kill'em!" He shouts, wiggling his fist menacingly with the rest of his vampiric breathren! Unclasping a necklace on some lovely vampiric lass so he can slip it away into the pocket of his brand new coat.

"Rawr how dare they ruin such a beautiful ceremony!" He says to his new compatriot in a ponytail wearing ... he thinks it's a male? ... vampire, whose pocket watch he boosts. "The cheek... the churlishness... How dare they."

Jubilee screams that she'll accept. That's the exact distraction he needs to return to Rogue, "We should grab da bride an' go, probably. The locals are a little bitey an' dere a lot of dem, non?"

Divine has posed:
Divine has been given the Go Ahead. She smiles slightly. It's not a nice expression. Her eyes glow violently as she looks at the vampires holding the X-friends' doppelgangers hostage. She looks at them straight in the eyes as she sweeps her gaze along them.

This comes with pinpoint lances of heat energy. The last thing any of them need is to be depowered when the Vampire King decides they are to die. Nothing kills vampires like pinpoint lances of heat, powered by the sun.

"Wait your turn, I'll drag you into orbit," she says to the Malefactor. Her mental defenses aren't fantastic, but her hybrid nature and the fact that Emma is in her head helps a ton.

Bobby Drake has posed:
This is something Bobby can help with. Keeping his distance from the vampires in his somewhat more delicate state, he leaps into action at Rogue's cry and hastily erects a giant wall of ice to try to protect Jubilee's escape.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko would rather /die/ than let this marriage go on, but if she had trouble with tears in her eyes, she definitely has trouble after running through a vampire.  The curtain of ickiness that she gets dressed in, she just shakes out of her eyes.  The neck tie flops to the ground like a dead fish.  And she has to keep moving to avoid getting snatched by any vampires, but slides on the ick and falls when Jubes says she'll marry Malefactor.  "NO JUBES!"  FUCK THE IDEA OF ACQUIESCING.

When a normal person slips while running full speed, sure, it hurts, but when Noriko bites it?  She's pretty much not stopping as she slaps into vampire bodies like a pinball spinning across the floor.

Jean Grey has posed:
<<If we can get out of here... by all means,>> Jean answers Emma, although her thoughts echo about the group. Well, shakily. Her telepathy is in even worse shape than Emma's, even still, and there's 'distortion' on it, turbulence of something else bleeding through the edge.

Still, it's a call for withdrawl if they can manage it! She dosn't have anything against Vampires enough to want the fight. Well... OK, admittedly, until recently she knew them from more from TV and codedly erotic YA novels than real life, so that lack of definitive stance is more a matter of lacking familiarity. Also the voice inside her head is screaming about 'scattering their atoms' to 'return them to the cycle,' but still, its not a fight that JEAN, specificaly, is seriously invested in.

But she is rather invested in Jubilee.

'Kill them all,' still somewhat reduces the room for negotiation. <<Get the last dopples free, anyone who can grab her->>

Jean's effort, for her part, is directed most of all at the gathering of Vampires menacing the last set of doppleganger hostages. As much as the others may be a bit recovered, she's still not in good shape, and she has to dig in where she doesn't want to dig to do it. She MEANS for the assault to be invisible, to reach out with her mind and hurl them away from their victims. Except she's doing what she's been avoiding and it doesn't exactly work out that way.

So what actually happens: There is a telekinetic asault. Except it manifests as a pair of gigantic burning talons, surging into the line of hostage-takers, each large enough to engulf more or less half their number. It is very effective, that cosmic fire, when it's let free, being quite the anti-Vampire weapon.

... she just happens to incinerate the WRONG line of hostage takers.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Mmm," the ponytailed vampire(ss) without a pocket watch anymore mutters back at Remy. "I believe...they are on the bride's side..." They shake their head at the disrespect of it all.

    The bells sound again, announcing the hour. Somehow, Aldebrand has wound up next to The Malefactor, positioned just behind him like all majordomos everywhere. "Master," he grovels. "I'm afraid that the ceremonies have run, ehem, long. We are to clear out for the Lugosi Bar Mitzvah..." He lowers his head in submission.

    "Very well," the Malefactor growls. "Tomorrow evening... At the stroke of midnight."

    Aldebrand clears his throat. "Master," he grovels again. "...The venue is engaged for the remainder of the week. We could, ehem, move it to the Knights of Columbus...Should that be your wish..." Aldebrand steps back one step and bows even deeper.

    "Next week!"

    "As you wish," Aldebrand agrees...

    Meanwhile, groups of guests are sizzled into dust by pinpoint-accurate heat vision speedster bowling continues sending upper class vampires flying. Any that try to escape find their one and only exit blocked by ice! But then... the TabbyBomb! As it reaches the apex of its arc, Aldebrand gives a vague signal with his hand. The dopples in the atrium close their eyes, fearing the worst, but... the warmth on the back of their necks is a welcome relief, as their captors go up in Jean's cinders. Down in the second sub-basement, though, eight low-budget stand-ins, one wearing a Phoenix International Raceway t-shirt and sipping from a koozie'd beer, fall to the ground, dead, after the captors drag their daggers across their throats. The ninth dopple, a Chinese girl wearing sunglasses, stares at the pile of bodies, wondering why she was left alive...

    And, just like that, Remy, Bobby, Divine, Emma, Jean, Noriko, Tabitha, and Rogue are back in the Recreation Room at the Mansion. In their absence, Hambone and his friends have gathered in front of the one working television to watch Beetlejuice.

    (Later: "Master," Aldebrand grovels. "...I'm afraid that we have been denied our security deposit on the venue. It seems that one of the guests, ehem, destroyed a nine-hundred thousand dollar antique chair with, ehem, an explosion. And, I'm afraid, your mother was staked by the, ehem, shrapnel.")