12460/Stepped Straight out of Tartarus.

Stepped Straight out of Tartarus.
Date of Scene:	17 August 2022
Location:	Recreation Room
Synopsis:	Tabby sucks at DDR. Disuades vengeance murder for a beating her father didn't do this time. Maybe grosses Negasonic out with Tartare Sauce wrestling Amazons. And maybe needs to take better care of her injuries so Iara and Jubilee stop feeling snacky at bad times.
Cast of Characters:	Tabitha Smith, Iara Dos Santos, Negasonic, Jubilation Lee

---

Tabitha Smith has posed:
There's usually a sign that Tabby has had a rough time when she's in one of her baby butch moods. That is, not dressing in tight loud clothes and downplaying that she looks like how she usually does; A fit curved blonde that does not look out of place among the teaching staff that are also secretlky totally X-men and models and rocks stars and all that.

So the Rec-Room is the sight of a dumpy tomboy looking thing in knee length cut off jeans and an oversized hoodie with the school logo across the front. Even her hair is hidden in a bun and a backwards worn ball cap with cat ears on it. Making them look flat and turned back like an actual angry feline. cat eye glasses with yellow lenses still sit on her nose bur those are prescription. She's functionally illiterate without them.

What she is lacking is shoes, pink socks on her feet bouncing from spot to spot on what looks like a DDR pad, a look of concentration as some high pitched J-Pop tune blasts from the sound system and arrows move from the bottom of the TV screen to the top and only give an evaluation of okay. So she's not failing out of the song.

Might be thhat she might have a lot on her mind and judging by the fact that she looks like she just came out of taking a beating. Bruises, swelling, black eyes, busted lip, maybe a broken nose and or orbital bones.

No wonder she's dressing down. No amount of makeup could hide that. Yet she's not hunkered up and hiding in her own room. So obviously it can't be too bad.

Iara Dos Santos has posed:
     Iara was walking past the rec room when she heard the familiar sounds of DDR blaring, and where a normal girl would take a step back to check... she makes a swinging turn in the hall to circle back around. Opening the door, anyone inside can see that she's currently wearing a yellow shirt cut roughly short to show her abs that says "FISH TACO" with a pair of black short shorts.

     Heading in she walks over to the DDR set and the baggy-clothed, disheveled looking blonde silently, but making no movement to hide or sneak. Aware by now that her appearance can be alarming for some and not recognizing her like this right away she leans in with a grinning shark maw, saying "Hey, you-OH! Tabby!" as she gets a look at her face, those glossy black eyes blinking. "Did you get in a fight? Did you win?"

Negasonic has posed:
    Ellie hears the j-pop blasting from down the hall as she exits the kitchen with a bowl of trail mix in one hand and a couple energy drinks stuffed in her hoodies pockets. "Ugh." is all she mutters before a black fingerless gloved hand reaches up and rubs her face.

    Mentally she ticks through the possible criminals responsible. It is summer break. Only the probates without families like her, either because their families ditched them or are dead, and graduate residents are really around.

    Finally giving up she sets her shoulders and walks down the hall with an air of dark disinterest and stops in the doorway to see what the hell is up in there. Trailing after Iara, but not entering fully. For a moment she wonders if they have some sort of feline mutant that likes wild DDR sessions, then it clocks. It may be it takes a minute because of how Tabby is dressed. "Huh." it is probably not heard over the music.

    She does hear the bit about a fight though and strolls further inside now collapsing herself into a chair with a good view. An M&M is tossed into her mouth. Peanut variety. "Doesn't look like she won." she notes dryly.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    There's a chill in the air. A darkness. The sounds of evil, dread, gloom echo throughout the mansion, heralding the arrival of the one true horror. It begins to get louder and louder, like a growing storm pushing forward the stuff of nightmares. Death. Destruction. Cruelty. It's right outside the Recreation Room...

    The heavy wooden doors whine as they struggle against the coming evil, their ancient hinges unable to keep it at bay. They swing open suddenly, slamming loudly against the walls.

    If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends!!!!

    Make it last forever, friendship never eeeeends!!

    Jubilation Lee comes barreling through the open doorway, eyes closed tightly, singing loudly into a pretend microphone made of a plastic Red Cross pouch of blood. She starts sashaying further into the Rec Room, leaps up onto the pool table and continues dancing along its length. One, two, three balls are kicked across the room in sync with the music that blasts from her earbuds.

    "If you wanna be my loverrrr, you have got to giiive! Taking is too easy, but that's the way---"

    From her champion pose at the edge of the pool table, Jubilation stares down at Ellie. Iara. Tabby. Her song putters into silence. She remains like that for an uncomfortably long amount of time. What would she say? Would anyone even believe these three if they told people? Wait. Hold up. Tabby.

    "Holy shit!" Jubilee announces before hopping off the pool table and making her way towards the blonde. As she passes Ellie and Iara, each of them get a flash of a peace sign, but her focus is on the explodey one. "What the fuck?!"

Tabitha Smith has posed:
People coming in. Tabby was certain people had all been off doing their own thing but the sound of a were-shark surprising the distracted blonde triggers her ADHD and earns a yelp and a quick hame over on the screen cause she missed too many notes and boy does Konami like to rub it in.

Fail Fail Fail!

That gets Tabitha growling at the old Playstsation 2 hooked up to the TV. "Shut up. Not You Iara, the TV." she specifies as Ellie also ends up coming in.

"Even Wonder Woman can't win them all. And I was there." she says and lets the game go and kicks back into the lounge behind her in about a hundred and twenty pounds of flomp.

"Hey look, I at least got stuck between Scylla and Charybdis. Literally and I blew them up. I'm calling surviving a hell realm a win. I'm still allowed to feel shitty." she states and suddenly find Jubilee calling her out.

The beat up blonde does have to squint a little even though her black eye sockets maybe kinda wish she didn't.

"You've seen me worse Jubes." she states then flits her eyes to the three women.

"Okay, I went to the Themysciran embassy to get some fight training. Ended up roped. Not the fun kind sadly into Tartarus, actual Greek afterlife. Fought with some weird but hot magic chick with purple hair. Blew Up Scylla and Charybdis. Turns out you can explode a six headed giant snake just fine. No regrowing heads. And my plsma bombs work fine under water." But purple haired chick got away. Turned Tigra into a dude. And Wonder Woman and her Sister could flatten all of us in a pinch and purple haired chick messed with my head. Broght up some old shit, mind makes it real." she syas and looks to the door then the women before she half lifts her top. Normally she'd have that tiny waist and abs on display but now they're all bandaged up and still bleeding through. "Made a memory of my father do it. Eww." she explains and drops her top back down again. "Wasn't real ish. But you guys kinda helped it not be so bad. Even you Jubes." she explains.

Iara Dos Santos has posed:
     Iara's mouth is large and thus quite expressive as that triangular toothed smile remains up until Tabby says she wasn't roped in a fun way, fading to a concerned frown and then a frown with a furrowed brow. The giant shark leans closer to Tabby like a giant, grey-scaled blanket about to envelop her as that brazilian-portugese accent from the shark simply asks "Can I pick you up? I don't wanna hurt ya, but I do wanna hug ya..."

Negasonic has posed:
    Ellie pops a couple of actual peanuts into her mouth as she watches Tabby FAIL FAIL FAIL. There is cool disinterest, somehow married with judgement about the failure at the game despite wereshark distraction. The expression just oozes get good without saying anything.

    Somehow she even manages to stay stoic as well as Jubilee comes in belting out the pop song and kicking pool balls across the room. Just one eyebrow archs as she and the others are looked down upon. Another M&M popped into her mouth before she fishes out an energy drink from her hoodie and pops it with a HSSSss.

    Ssssiiip.

    "I thought Wonder Woman did win them all?" she asks sort of to the room, skeptically. "The greek six headed serpent?" at the name and then falls quiet at the continued show and tell presentation. Lookat the nerd who knows some mythology, maybe she googled it. She actually blinks at the blood. "Shit." she admits.

    Breezing right by the whole fact feels words used about making it not so bad. "Let me get this straight. You went to train in fighting with the amazons and didn't bring me?" priorities. Not oh glad you are okay. Oh no.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilee reaches up and pulls her black Ray Bans out of her hair and slips them over her eyes. Protection for Tabby as she leans in and gets a good look. "Wait, so, like, your /imagination/ did this?" Jubilee concludes, tilting her head this way and that as she gawks at Tabby's face. The attention from Jubilee is energetic, but not without a certain economic undertone. It's like she's inspecting Tabby and assessing her resale value. "What do you mean, 'even me' ?" Jubes adds, even frowning a little.

    There might be more to say but...Tabby lifts up her shirt. The world stops. Time stands still for Jubilee. All that exists is Tabby. Well, Tabby's stomach. Well, actually, the wound on Tabby's stomach. The pooled stain on the bandage... The silent thumping of her body struggling to clot it. Uh oh.

    HOLY HELL HERE COMES IARA.

    Jubes ducks under any extended limbs or fins or...well, anything grey, and winds up outside the danger zone, hip leaned against the frame of Negasonic's chair. The vampiress glances down at the judgmental one, and cooly tilts her head upwards. "Sup," is all she says before jamming the pointy end of a plastic straw into the plastic blood pouch like it's a Capri Sun.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
Tabitha Smith says, "It's not a secret. You can come next time Ellie. I go a couple times a month. Jimmy's great for fight training. Proudstar that is. And do not let him know. At all. He gets twitchy when the words Tabby, Daddy, Beating are in the same paragraph." The blonde states and winces but she does at least open her arms and let hugs happen. Even Jubilee though Tabby probably smells like extra food. Tenderised.

"Monet does as well in her own time. They're pretty cool about it and do classes." she drifts off topic for a moment. "Plus you know. Amazons!" she says mid Shark hug. That gets a huge grin and a wink to the group. "I was there with them in Tartarsauce so it was probably my fault. I kinda got teleported up like half a mile or something and dropped. Donnaa kinda had to stop fighting and catch me even if I can kinda deal with that kinda landing. They didn't know so she did what she could and hero'd me."

Jubilee's staring gets a quick realization that her display of injuries while not intended. Probably might as well have been a whipped cream bikini.

"Even you. Okay. Psychic battle. I was kind of losing it. This chick Circe I think it was. Bad news and if I start mooing and growing horns it's probably her. Any was trying to make me feel all useless and that nobody loves... My dad beating and whipping be with his belt, magic hell and yada yada yada. Anyway, tripped my brain and I'm all like nuh uh. If I was so uselesss I wouldn't be wearing an X at all. My real fam yo!" she states and snap points around Iara to Jubilee.

"Just lucky it's the sort of fam that is kinda like a whole genre on the 'Hub that the kids in the computer lab think Kitty doesn't know they're trying to get around the parental locks for.""

Iara Dos Santos has posed:
     Iara only now seems to realize the others joined in as she sees Jubes duck between them and then out of the way, Ellie to her right. Carefully, gingerly, she hugs Tabby compassionately with an enveloping strength, lifting her off the ground from the pressure on Tab's upper chest and swinging her back and forth a little, pausing a moment to listen to the story, completely missing Jubes's thirsty stare.

     Iara's eyes reopen as she blinks a bit, saying "Wait, you got to wrestle the amazons in tartar sauce!?" with a far too clear jealousy in her voice, before blinking and saying with realization "Oh. Fuck, you meant Tartarus, ugh, man, okay, still I'm jealous, I'm an amazon and my country has the amazon in it, I should get to train with the OTHER amazons, tartar sauce or no... but..." She seems to inhale deeply, and looks up, saying "Oh God, I can't get the idea of wrestling Wonder Woman in Tartar sauce out of my head now, I hate you so much Tabby..." but definitely doesn't mean that from the mirth in her voice.

     She inhales deeply again, clearing that mental image from her head (or saving it for later) as Tabby starts to slip a little in her grip, the shark finally putting her down as she says "But for real, I hope you slugged your dad damn good if a memory or mental projection of him or whatever did this to you... and I'm glad your projections of us helped." Iara's grin gets big and goofy once more as she can't stop herself from asking, "Did mental projection me get any good hits in?"

Negasonic has posed:
    "I could train for fighting with Proudstar and Monet anytime. The whole point is Amazons and Wonderwoman." she keeps her tone flat, not excited at the idea. Nope. "Would be good to learn other styles of combatting." yup that is it, not amazons. Nope. "Wrestling Wonder Woman in Tarter sauce.. okay thanks Iara... " head shake.

    No teenage hormones here.

    She pops another couple peanuts into her mouth, tosses up really with decent aim. "That sounds shitty." abouut Tabs ordeal. Not really acknowledging the whole family x-family yadda yadda talk. Nope too feely touchy shit. "Circe the witch who turned sailors into pigs.... like guys aren't already?"

    She looks up at Jubes "Sup vampStack?"

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Even you. Even though Tabby's gut wound is practically screaming her name (how could could a donation bag swiped from the Red Cross even be?), Jubilation's expression has soured completely. Even you. "What the fuck, Tabby?" Jubilee replies, though her tone lacks the venom of the words themselves. She sounds annoyed, mostly. That's practically confirmed by a sudden 'tsk' sound from inside her throat as her eyebrows peek above her Ray Bans just enough to make her eyeroll obvious. The micro aggressions from the living, being 'othered' by her former friends. It's been an interesting year.

    "Okay, so, like, you were training with Wonder Woman... And your dad beat you up? But, you won thanks to the...healing power of friendship?..." Jubes begins working it out aloud for the benefit of all to hear. But, before she too has a chance to express her disgust with Wonder Sauce, Tabby says something worse. It's enough to respond to Negasonic's question ('Sup vampStack') with her mouth hanging open, fangs loud and proud, looking to see if she's as grossed out by Tabby's description of family as she is.

    "Tabs. Look. I know that, like, you're..." She pauses, searching for the word. "...Well..." Instead of a word, Jubes just gestures vaguely towards Tabby with her hand. "...But, like, keep me outta your web history unless you wanna get your face punched in right here instead of going all the way to Amazon Dot Com for it."

    Jubes glares for good measure before puckering her lips against the straw to draw up some donated blood from the stolen pouch. She goes silent for a few moments, long enough to quench that never ending thirst and push back the evil struggling to break free. "...Did your dad really hit you, Tabby?" she asks, her tone completely free of the anger and hatred of just a moment ago.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
"I kinda ran away from home. Met a sentient cosmic power from beyond that could maybe give the Phoenix a run for it's money who may have healed me and may or may not have made me look like I normally do, I dunno I never saw anything but bruises in a mirror until I was like fourteen. But that was just another skeev trying to control my life. Met people way worse than my dad. Killed one, got more abuse. All kinds a gross stuff. Learned to steal. Fought alien bugs and then met the New Mutants. Then here, yadda yadda. At least when I get hurt now it's usually for a cause." Tabby yadda yaddas her own mess of a teenage life.

There is a grin at the inadvertand mental imagery that was instilled about mayonaise baised condiments and very fit goddess ladies. Tabby doesn't help when she beams a psychic image to the those that can receive it. Donna, Diana, and herself in a tub of it and not actually fighting in a Grecian hellscape.

Then Jubes is maybe calling bullshit. "Hellscape magic telepathy this time. But yes, the beatings wer real. Me, my dead mom. His next three wives. He's a drunk abusive asshole. Still is." There's video confirming that her father still thinks Tabby is trash and in need of more abuse.

"Which is half my beef with what happend with your new existance and shit. I'm proud a ya for running with it and coming up on top of the whole mess. But you never got to consent at the start. Other people and critters being abused has been kind of a beserk button for me lately. And I'm fairly certain it's not just me." she adds

Negasonic has posed:
    Well if Jubes can count on two things with Ellie they are first that she never flinches or seems scared by the vampire-ness and second that while she micro-aggressions and macro-aggressions it is the same level for everyone at Xavier's home for misfit and broken teens.

    Also yes. While the look is schooled mild hostility and sulleness, it is clear she was fairly grossed out by the whole family and power of friendship spiel.

    The talk about the fact her dad is still a an abusive asshole. "Want us to go blow him up. He sounds like someone who needs a swift kick to the nuts at the very least." she means it too. She doesn't just fight trolls on the internet. She crusades iRL too.

Iara Dos Santos has posed:
     Iara is caught off guard by the mental image, but it seems to really make her squirm, wincing in an expression that really shows her sentience rather than the almost blank-looking expression she frequently has, saying "Porra, Tabby, Warn me before you..." before she exhales, looking down a bit in stark realization as she actually drools a little... before wiping her mouth and wincing again, saying "I didn't think about other girls like this until I got all sharky, I'll have you know..." in an almost frustrated fashion, "But damn, Wonder Woman... Thinking about her like that... Meu Deus, I would break my teeth on her..." It's actually a little hard to interpret just what exactly she means by that, but there's definitely a sort of sexual undertone there.

     She then looks from Tabby to Jubilee, saying "So wait... Uh, hey, like, none of us chose to be what we are. Like, I love what I am but like..." She looks to Jubilee to try to make sure she's not saying the wrong thing, hesitating before saying "I mean, I like you how you are, Jubes, if that matters..." as she looks a bit uncomfortable with this conversation. "I just..." The giant shark can't seem to decide what direction she wants to go in with her words, so she loops back around to Tabby, saying "Tabby if you need me to help you settle things with your dad, like, ever, you let me know. Eat him, save him for you, I don't care, I'll do it. Jubes, I don't... I don't know, Jubes, it's not my place to say how you feel about yourself and I don't exactly know a hundred percent what you feel, but whatever it's worth I like you and what you are now, and if you wanna change that I'll help you however I can do that too."

     Iara then shakes her head, saying "Merda, I know this all sounds just... fuckin' hollow just saying I'll help but I mean it, and I care about you both. Just... Ugh." She goes over to grab some snacks from the baskets, apparently resorting to food as a means of comforting her friends, taking a few snack-size packages of cookies as she tosses one to Tabby, one to Ellie, and then... mentally seems to berate herself as she holds the remaining two to herself, pulling Jubes to the couch as she then sticks her wrist in front of Jubes's face, saying "Snack on me." before opening a bag of cookies by biting it and pulling so that she doesn't have to draw her hand away.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Yeah, he sounds like a future corpse if you ask me," Jubilee casually mentions, shrugging a little before taking another pull from her straw. Maybe it's innocent, or maybe it's meant to disgust the living, but after Jubes swallows that last gulp, she smacks her lips like a TV commercial for O Negative Blood. Pause for effect, pause for effect. Jubilee looks from Tabby to Iara to Ellie. "I'm not gonna /do/ anything to him."

    "I promise."

    But, as Jubilation Lee's new life is spent in a constant tug-of-war between a teenage girl and a bloodthirsty monster, her tone shifts far from the certainty of her hypothetical revenge on Tabby's father. She sounds concerned, really, or... about as much as a vampire could try to. "I'm sorry your dad hit you," she says softly before glancing down at her blood pack. Siiiiiiiip.

    But then, suddenly, the group's focus shifts to her. How her life turned out. How short it was. Her head turns on a swivel as each of the other girls adds their commentary.

    "...Huh?" she says to Tabby.

    "What?" Jubes jabs at Iara.

    "..." Jubes turns to look at Nega, as though it's her turn to add to the pile-on. But, nothing. Good ol' Ellie. You can always count on her to be cool-as-hell.

    The last straw ends up being Iara's offer to snack on her. "Woah, okaaay, hold on," Jubilation exclaims, suddenly pushing away from Ellie's chair so she can take two very smooth, very unnerving steps towards the Recreation Room's heavy doors. "Guys, I'm, like, fine! You don't see me cryin' about it. And, uh, I don't, uh..." She stares at Iara's wrist, dangling out in the air for her to chomp down on. Unlike earlier, there's no temptation crossing over Jubilation's features. "I don't... do that," is what Jubilation comes up with as she looks up at Iara. What doesn't she do? Drink blood? HA! Drink from the living? Well, that's unclear. Drink from her friends, maybe "I get what you guys are doing, but I'm /fine/...Like, if I wasn't like this, I'd be dead, right? Besides... Nori doesn't have to always worry about electrocuting me anymore..."

    By now, Jubilee has almost reached the doorway, still backing away from the others. "I'm, uh, I'm gonna go, uh, to the bathroom. And... age...for a while," she adds with a growing smile. She doesn't do either of those things anymore. That nonsense is for the living. As Jubes turns towards the door to walk out properly, she adds one final jab to make sure that her time spent here will be remembered as the sass-monster Jubilee they all remember.

    "Put a steak on that black eye, Tabby!"

    Jubes pulls the doors shut behind her but stops before closing them completely. She turns and leans back in to add, "...A steak-steak, like, from a cow. Not, like...you know, a /stake/..." She brings both fists to her chest and pretends to stab herself in the heart with an imaginary wooden stake. And then...she closes the doors shut behind her.

Tabitha Smith has posed:
"Don't go exploding or murdering my dad. It's still my fault he'd be dead even by proxy. And I have enough dead bodies behind me to feel guilty about that I did kill!." The blonde disuades as if she was the actual adult in the room. "He's hardly the worst parent we've had." Tabitha points out with a nod. "Rahne's dad tried to have her lynched and burned at the stake even though she's like best doggo."

The woman handwaggles soon after "Actually it's about fifty fifty. I got treated like an active shooter back in Roanoake." she says at her own espense.

"But like we don't go doing the whole vengeance thing on our 'rents. If he shoves a shotgun in your face I won'y lose sleep if you defend yourself but no poking the bears. It just gives the racists fuel to use against us all." she explains sagefully then flits into a look of abject horror.

"Ugh. I can't believe I'm the one dishing the sage advice. I'm old! Noooooooo!" she says and chomps on Iara provided cookie like it was going out of style or she had blue fur.

"You know we should just donate blood, mix up the matching blood types at least so you can have more options for snackage. No specific single person so like you don't get hooked. Like on that show where the zombie eats brains and gets memories and skills and fights crime. Multiple brains creates like a white noise. Same diff I guess with blood and vamps?" Tabby suggests with a shrug.

"Last time I offered you a drop Jubes. You stuck me with a bar tab. And can you handle having your own blood in the air Iara. I figure mine's bad enough. Like no frenzying among frens!" she states with mock sternness.

It's a pain replacing Playstation 2s and getting them modded for modern TVs.

At least when Jubes gets up and doesn't nom on Iara Tabby maybe kinda gets it. "Yeah, Iara, umm. I'd let her feed too in a pinch like I said. But I think she still has a weird worry about hurting or turning us. Hence the weird looks she gave me earlier." There is a yell though to the Asian girl heading out and then giving advice.

"Frozen Peas mold to my face better! Dead cow just makes you wanna cheat! I don't need a wooden stake either!" cause she just has to get a last word in.