18203/Just How Odd Is Jaxon

Just How Odd Is Jaxon
Date of Scene:	06 June 2024
Location:	Medbay Private Room - Asteroid M
Synopsis:	Mystique keeps vigil over Jaxon in the medbay, gets a visit from an expert in mutant physiology, Dr. Lutz. A protective mother drops a threat on the good doc to find a way to heal her son.
Cast of Characters:	Raven Darkholme, Jaxon Blain

---

Raven Darkholme has posed:
From inside the private patient room on the asteroid, it was impossible to know if it was day or night, but that could be said for anywhere on the base really. In this case the inability to tell the time of day came from the fact that all the lights in the room had been dimmed down to barely illuminating the space.

At the center of the room was a comfortable hospital bed, not one of those pieces of crap humans had to deal with in their hospitals. A bedside table on wheels held a pitcher of ice water, with a glass in plastic wrap sitting beside it. The television mounted to the wall offered no picture, but soft classical music could be heard playing through the speakers.

In a comfortable chair beside the bed sat Mystique, her eyes closed as she listened to the music. Jaxon had been unconscious for a couple of days. Emily had diagnosed the damaged done to Jaxon's body, and Jasmine had done what she could to help him, but both has said that he was unique in his physiology, and that made their jobs more difficult.

Jaxon Blain has posed:
While it's true that Jaxon has been out most of those few days, there have been times when he's drifted a little closer to the surface. Those times were filled with mumbles and sounds - sometimes just normal dreams, nothing disturbing. Other times it seemed a little more intense and at least one time, he said His name.

The expert that Mystique called in, Dr. Gregory Lutz, has been running tests, taking x-rays, using ultrasound, performing MRIs. Some of those tests were repeated more than a few times.

When asked if Jaxon was going to be okay? The answer has consistently been - 'I just don't know yet, Ms. Darkholme'.

One thing is has been abundantly clear, even in his mostly unconscious state, the no lights thing needs to be a hard and fast rule. During one instance of 'trying to figure him out', Lutz made the mistake of turning on the overhead lights. The result was not a good one. It was the only time Jaxon made any real noise that sounded like pain.

After several hours of pouring over more tests, Lutz knocks softly on the door.

Raven Darkholme has posed:
That one time Lutz turned on the light, Mystique had thrown a knife into the light bulb. It was reflexive. Light came on, dagger, light went out, with a lot of cursing in German.

From the minute Jaxon had been brought in, Mystique had been by his side. Emily had attempted twice to convince her to leave, but that had been about as effective a rice paper wall trying to stop a flood. The news that he was her son had kept her there, hour by hour, watching over him.

At the sound of the knock, her eyes open and move to look at the door. If he was like any other doctor in the world, he would knock and just walk in, but just in case she called quietly, "Come in."

Jaxon Blain has posed:
Come in he does. Lutz is holding what appears to be some sort of tablet. They've become the best way to share medical images these days. But his? Well, it's different. He settles it down on a table but before doing anything with it he says, "I have been studying mutant physiology for a very long time. Perhaps I don't look it, but I've been around a very long time and I have never seen anything like this young man. Before we go into the results of the tests, I need to show you something."

Carefully, as to not to spook an over protective Mystique, Lutz moves to the side of Jaxon's bed and pulls the blanket down off of him far enough to reveal an area at the center of his chest. The small slit in the skin that runs down his sternum opens and closes rhythmically with the young man's breathing.

"If you look very carefully and closely, you can actually /see/ his body drawing the shadows into itself. Do you see it? How it almost looks like a thin tendril of black smoke being - for lack of a better word - suck into him?"

Raven Darkholme has posed:
Overprotective... Lutz had no real idea when he thought that. There were only a very select few who knew what Mystique was capable of in defense and protection of her children, and even fewer who would ever want to witness it.

As Lutz entered she stood up, watching his movements like a predator watches prey. Yes, she had asked him here, to do exactly what he was doing, but that didn't mean she liked it. So while he was in the room, she watched his every move with one hand on the hilt of a dagger.

"Jasmine mentioned something about his body being shadows," she offered as she watched the wound. The very sight of it made her blood boil, made her muscles tense, and caused a rage in her that almost ate away the ability to think clearly. None of it was visible on her face, or in her eyes, but it was there inside her waiting to be released.

With her keen night vision she was able to see far better in the dim light, watching as the shadows are pulled in through the wound and into him. "What does it mean?" she asks bluntly, not one for mincing words.

Jaxon Blain has posed:
"That is exactly what his body needs to be doing. That is a natural opening. Perhaps not always so visible when he isn't actively using his gifts or when he isn't injured." Lutz respectfully pulls the blanket back up. He turns back to the tablet and taps a few times on his tablet screen. A holographic, 3D image of Jaxon's body springs to life - a skinless image of Jaxon's body. It's the results of all the tests run in one perfect 3D image to be manipulated as Lutz sees fit.

He starts with a static image. It's easy to see the immediate differences between Jaxon and a normal human. All of his bones are black, all of his organs are black - everything on the inside consists of varying shades of black and gray. But there are still things to be pointed out.

"Jaxon has greenstick fractures of the radius and ulna." He points, indicating nothing but a few black blobs in the image. "He also has a lacerated liver - at least I believe it to be a liver, it's in the right place anyway." He points to another blob. Three cracked ribs on the left side of his chest - same black blobs.

"See how the darkness gathers around the injuries? It's almost like white blood cells doing the same - rushing to the site of infection or injury - but in a much greater quantity. This is why he hasn't died already without surgery."

A beat to let that settle in before, "Drawing his 'blood' into a syringe produces a dark substance the consistency of blood, but the small wound left behind doesn't bleed - it, well it 'leaks' out in a shadowy form, in much the same way he's drawing it /in/ now."

Raven Darkholme has posed:
Lutz has no way of knowing that each word is devoured intently, every piece of information memorized, even as it all fuels the hatred for humanity inside of Mystique. It was difficult for her to hear this, to see the damage and even if the man couldn't explain it beyond black blobs doing black things with shadow, it was clear enough the amount of damage that had been done. Jaxon's body may not be put together like others, but he still had all the parts, they were simply constructed differently.

"Hathaway took some of his blood," she muses. "Said it was like black molasses in the syringe until she finished the draw, then it was just pure black 'blood."

Mystique wasn't a doctor, but she knew the human body. She's honed her skill for one strike kills by studying the best locations to strike. It was this knowledge of the body she used while looking at the images. "His blood is the same shadow as the rest of him," she then said more clearly, the musing having passed. "So what you are saying is that he /is/ shadow, right down to his bones. Everything inside of him is comprised of this shadow, condensed into bone and organs, muscle and blood, and even the skin on his body is shadow, but mimics normal skin tones."

Jaxon Blain has posed:
"Yes." Lutz confirms Mystique's assessment with one simple word. "When he 'assumes' his shadow form, he's merely allowing his skin to return to its natural state. When he creates constructs from the shadows, he's doing so by drawing the into himself first. I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't able to create claws if given the right instruction and practice. His manipulation of shadows happens because he /is/ one. His travel through them is made possible by the same."

With a flick of a finger, the image turns more toward a combination of an ultrasound and an MRI, a 3D model of how all of those inside workings, well, work.

"See this?" Lutz points to the one thing in Jaxon's body that doesn't just look like a shadow version of 'normal'. It almost resembles a second, smaller heart - just below the first and approximately at the end of that slit in his chest. It's pulsing and beating, but not in time with his heart, it seems the two organs are on opposite cycles from one another. "I believe that this organ is what filters the shadows he takes in. It then..." He pauses, struggling to find the right words to explain the process. "... transforms what's taken in into the 'blood' that sustains his body. It's transformed and then pumped into the heart and then pumped out into his body. But, as you can see, it also pumps the shadow energy throughout his body, outside his veins. That's where the shadows are seen shifting beneath his skin and in his eyes."

Another flick of a finger and it all goes back to a static image. "In normal, day to day life, it's likely that the darkness created simply by wearing a shirt feeds him what he needs. I imagine that slit closes down to a fraction of the size it is now. It's likely only visible, unless one is looking for it, when he's been injured or when he's using his powers."

Raven Darkholme has posed:
Leaning in closer to the image, Mystique studies the extra organ as it works, then looks to Jaxon's chest, at the slit there. In her life she had met thousands upon thousands of mutants, some so unique as to be unexplainable. In the past, Jaxon would have been one of those, an anomaly that modern (for the time) medicine couldn't fathom. There was a time when she herself was like that, the manner in which she changed forms unexplainable, but now she knew from experts that it was more than changing her skin, she changed all the way down to her DNA.

"How do we treat him?" she finally stated, looking away from the 'breathing' opening to look at Lutz. "There has to be something we can do beyond a dark room and worthless prayers to a dead god."

Jaxon Blain has posed:
"I don't believe that surgery is an option with him, ever. It would be impossible to stave off bleeding when he's bleeding shadows. How does one stop a shadow?" One doesn't. But that doesn't mean that all hope is lost. Lutz is thoughtfully silent for a long few moments, likely because he's worried about the fact that he's about to tell this deadly woman that, "Well, it's only conjecture, but if there was a way for him to pull in the darkness that fuels him /faster/ it could definitely speed up the healing process. The shadows that float outside the veins, those seem to be what's facilitating his healing without medical intervention. The one fracture, I was certain would need to be set, but if you look closely enough the bone is already straight - not healed, but straight."

Only conjecture - that's the bit he's worried about. No /solid/ answer doesn't always go over well with the loved ones of his patients.

Raven Darkholme has posed:
Lutz was a lucky man, far more lucky that he likely realized. Had he said anything else, it was likely this would have been the last consult job he ever did, but he was right, the bone was mending far more rapidly than was normal for broken bones to do so.

"Pitch black," she then says with a nod, and throws the knife she had been holding the hilt off to take out the remaining light. Hathaway would bitch about it later, but even the good doctor knew to just stay out for now. "And time. That appears to be all we can do, right now."

Turning her yellow eyes to look Lutz in the eyes, the only light now from his tablet and the monitors. He can see the threat there now in her eyes, matched by her tone as she says, "Take what you now know to Jasmine and Hathaway, tell them everything and find a way to heal my son."

Jaxon Blain has posed:
Of course Ms. Darkholme." To his credit, Lutz didn't even managed to not flinch when the knife was thrown. It isn't until he's gathered up his tablet that he adds, "I would suggest at least some light, a little, enough to cast shadows. It's the shadows that sustain him - not the darkness itself."

Once he's gone, well...

Jaxon coughs, not violently, just a little thing like a tickle in his throat. The whites of his eyes show the first time he tries to open them and they close again. Second time, it's those shadowy blues, but they shut again. Finally the open and stay opened for the moment - not quite /focused/ but open.

Raven Darkholme has posed:
Walking around the bed, Mystique turns on a small lamp on the desk where the doctor might sit to take notes, or a visitor might put a lap top. Just enough light to fill the room is shadows from every angle, and then she walks back to the chair she had been sitting in.

"Coming back to reality, Jaxon?" she asks softly when she sees his eyes open, a well practiced smile on her face.

Jaxon Blain has posed:
"No," Jaxon replies, his voice hoarse. Likely denying the fact that the hurt he's feeling is any sort of reality. "What happened?" The last thing he remembers is trying to disarm some giant ass cannon on the top of some giant as freighter when it decided to take aim at Magneto.

"Never mind." He's not sure he wants to know. He has so many questions and the more what happened next begins to come back to him, the more questions he has. Like why isn't he dead? How did he wind up where he's at now? Is anyone else dead? Did Magneto get blown to bits? It's too much to think about through the pounding in his head.

So, he settles on the easy for now, "I need some water."

Raven Darkholme has posed:
Taking the plastic wrapped glass, Mystique opens it up and pours some of the water into it, then adds a straw to make it easier to sip from.

"If my informants are correct," she begins, offering the glass with straw aimed at his lips. "Shit went down, none of it good."

She could give more details, but at the moment her main concern was him and making sure he was actually alright. "You need to stay as still as possible, you have broken bones that are healing," she then adds, before using her free hand to hold the straw in place for him... wouldn't do to have him chasing the straw around with his tongue.

Jaxon Blain has posed:
Alright might be a stretch, but at least he's conscious? Jaxon's been down this road before - it's not the first time he's been in a medbay after being injured during some kind of 'shit going down', but this time he doesn't have to be afraid of punishment for 'failing'.

He's been down this road before.

He only sips the water, just a few little pulls on that straw and he's pulling away from it. Too much, too fast is never a good thing.

"I had the weirdest dream," he murmurs as he settles back more fully into the comfort of his pillow.

"You were talking about finding a way to save your son..." With each word his voice gets softer and softer around the edges, almost slurred. Just a beat after he's spoken the truth that he thinks was a dream, he's asleep again.

Raven Darkholme has posed:
Setting the glass back on the table, Mystique reaches up to run her fingers through Jaxon's hair, pushing it back off his face with a gentle motion. "Some dreams are reality Jaxon," she whispers. "Sleep for now, they'll find a way to help you and then I'll tell you everything."