4100/Mah Head, Jean

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Mah Head, Jean
Date of Scene: 11 November 2020
Location: Headmistress' Office
Synopsis: Jean helps Rogue out of a PICKLE! Rogue learns yet another lesson on why touchin' random powerful enemies is a troublesome thing to do! Will she ever LEARN?! Nope, probably not.
Cast of Characters: Rogue, Jean Grey




Rogue has posed:
Rogue had been in Gotham City earlier, gone to pick up a new phone that only one tech shop in Gotham had. She'd reserved it and made Gambit go with her so she could have some company to chat with, and because she kinda liked him too. For some reason.

And as things do, it all went to Hell, so to speak.

A bank robbery broke out down the street from the tech shop, a bank directly across from a POLICE STATION, no less.

But Rogue had responded to the mass chaos that was breaking out, and ended up inside the bank, challenging some of the robbers. One of them was a giant muscle-y man, who she... naturally put down, and to subdue his electricity-commanding powers, she absorbed him, put him to bed...

Now, hours later, Rogue is suffering with the man's memories. She has images of him killing people in her head, and enjoying it. She wants them out, so she's stumbling around on her way to find Jean, approaching her office now and knocking on the door if she needs to to get the Headmistress' attention.

Jean Grey has posed:
As usual, Jean seems a step a head, and the audible impact of Rogue's knuckles with the old fashioned wooden door almost overlaps with her greeting from inside. "Come in."

As opposed to the other woman's hellish excursion, it is a day like any other for the Headmistress. There are administrative details to oversee, student reports to review, various calls and consulations with parents, both extant and, perhaps even more importantly, those of prospective students. She is a busy lady working at business-like tasks with efficiency. She's also channeling her inner librarian, in a blouse, cardigan and pencil skirt. Maybe she had some in-person meetings, too? It never fails with the dads.

At first, she doesn't even look up as Rogue makes her way inside. She already knows who it is, and for her friend, there's not much need for the usual formality.

... Except it only takes a few moments before she feels that something is off. With that, she does look up, face showing gentle concern. "What's the matter?"

She asks, rather than merely probing, because all contradictory evidence aside, she does value the privacy others keep. There's also the mundane side of her profession: what, how people choose to share of their own can tell you a great deal.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue opens the door and she just strides right on in to Jean's office, shutting it back behind her as she goes. Wearing low-rise blue jeans, with a leather belt cinched around her waist, a black tank top that doesn't go entirely down to the hem of her jeans but shoes off a fun bit of skin, with an unbuttoned black/white checkered flannel shirt on over it, Rogue's booted feet carry her in to the room and right over toward the drinks and glasses Jean keeps in here... which she's never done before.

She starts to pour herself something to drink, which she's never done before.

One part of Rogue's head makes her want to just tell Jean precisely what's going on, but that triggers the new personality inside of her, the man she took the mind of.

"I finally did it." Rogue says, pouring herself a glass of water and raising it up to take a big drink, like she'd just come out of the desert. She exhales and wipes her lips with the back of her sleeve. "I killed that bastard, Margie." She says, looking over to Jean with a big grin. "Stabbed him good too, you'd of loved seein' it."

There's a cackle, the accent she was talking in was not southern at all. It was New Yorker tough guy.

"Poor dumb fuck bled out at my feet, beggin' for his mommy t'save'im." The Belle shakes her head side to side, her white bangs gently brushing against her cheeks.

Jean Grey has posed:
The outfit is unusual, but if you asked Jean to judge the situation on its merits alone, she'd probably fail. Rogue can be a little weird. A bit of a rebel. And her clothes are nothing if not rebellious, albeit in an entirely different mode than usual.

Nor would the drink say so much by itself. People get thirsty.

Plus, all of that ends up being fairly irrelevant, because it wouldn't take much in the way of a detective to work out that something is very mufch out of the ordinary when she finally speaks up. The voice, the content, her mannerism, take your pick. It's not simply wrong, it's someone else. And while this would be a startling occurrence in anyone else, Jean knows her friend's powers well enough to immediately grasp the 'what' of the situation, the 'how.' Indeed, she doesn't even have to probe to get the best piece of evidence: even if this new part of the woman doesn't want to let her say what's wrong, that internal turmoil is -loud-, Rogue's frustration coming through like a strangled scream.

"Oh yeah?" she wonders back, smiling disarmingly for the personality she's speaking with. "Why don't you tell me about it?"

Simultaneously, she reaches toward that frustrated part of the woman's mind to make contact. << Who is this? And how long was the contact? >> There's a clinical precision to the inquiry, because Jean recognizes there is a real danger here. She can do many things, but casually separating Rogue's mind from its more -permanent- additions proved not to be one of them, or at least, not something she could do without risk of shredding the underlying psyche. So there is real concern, albeit measured.

Touching her temple, she reaches beyond that initial contact, feeling out the vague shape of the mental landscape in front of her. She needs to understand the size, the scope of the problem, before anything else.

Rogue has posed:
Jean's been one of the main people to help Rogue with this stuff. Obviously Charles as well, but she hadn't been able to find Charles, plus the 'new guy' in her head had been more eager to find Jean, for obvious 'gross prison dude' reasons.

When Rogue had come to this school, she'd had many personalities roaming freely inside of her mind, but Carol's was the most dominant, and it had to be all dealt with just to get Rogue back closely to her original self. Charles and Jean had done exceptional work at this, in fact, and Rogue was /mostly/ herself all the time now... though with Carol flavorings often still shining through.

In this instance though, the tough guy had really pushed his way to the forefront. But when Jean delves inside, she'll find Rogue, and Rogue will talk right back to her <<"Jean! I'm sorry, I thought I could handle this guy! He didn't 'have me' until I got home and took a nap. When I woke up, he took control!">> She says it all frantically. <<"I-I... broke up a bank robbery in Gotham earlier, I had to absorb this guy to get him to shutup and stop hurtin' people!'>>

On the outside?

'Rogue' grins over at Jean. "I'll tell ya about it..." She says with a swagger as she walks toward the Headmistress. "Over dinner t'night, you'n me. Paulo's Steakhouse? Maybe a little dancin' over at that place ya like, The Black Diamond, was it?"

Clearly whomever this is inside of Rogue, they think Jean is someone else.

Jean Grey has posed:
<< It's alright. >> That is the first thought Jean gets across, with extra mental underlining. Rogue needs to be strong, and panic goes against that. And although the situation is unusual, the telepath's impression of this new resident is hardly one of a... staggering mental giant who will overpower them both. So the whole exercise becomes one more of figuring out what, in particular, is anchoring this fellow so strongly, what drive in his own mind, what crevice or crack in Rogue's psyche, has allowed himself to grow so comfortable? << Did you notice anything unusual about him? Sense anything clear as you absorbed him? >>

Jean is cautious to keep her communication isolated, her poise and mental proficiency enough that she can carry out simultaneous conversations on both 'planes' without one interfering with the other, although not without care and caution. It's obvious his perceptions are a bit skewed: she's 'Margie,' evidently.

Why not?

"Ooh baby, that sounds wonderful," she answers the man, smiling big. "You know I like a fancy night on the town." It's... strange? But she's not that worried. And Rogue doesn't -look- like the guy, so it's presumably all at least a little bit less offputting to have to play along. She ventures a guess: "We been waiting a while to have a night like this, yeah?"

<< For a criminal you met robbing a bank, his thoughts are definitely elsewhere. On this woman, on some man he killed. Maybe it has to do with that incident? >> Which guides her search. Momentarily, she abandons Rogue (-three- way focus would be pushing it, perhaps) and enters those at the forefront, steeling herself for the worst of the imagery. But that is the imagery she is interested in, this man he killed, the woman she is, the robbery, how these things form together into motivation, drive, and will.

Rogue has posed:
<<"I don't know, he's stronger than the others, not like Carol strong, but still strong. The others I can mostly deal with on my own these days... this guy, he's like a mind controller!">> Rogue rambles a bit, she doesn't seem to have a lot of focus in this dramatic moment. Of course, Jean also knows that this terrifies her, because it makes the southern girl feel like she's being buried alive. A mental coffin hidden in the ground, and only a handful of people can find her to help...

<<"He was an electricity guy, sorta like that kid we brought in, Drake Riley.">> Rogue says, trying to formulate stuff that'd actually help Jean. <<"His body was covered in tats too, tribal lookin' shit. Made me wonder if he was magic-based, but nah, I think he was more like meta-human. Not Mutant even. His name is Terrence, but his friends call him T-Dog. Margie called him Terry, the only person he let call him Terry is her!">>

Electrical base, which if Jean follows that, might make her think he has the ability to control the firings inside of Rogue's mind... though that'd be some impressive control!

Back on the outside...

'Rogue' is doing that saunter-walk toward Jean. "You're right about that." The Belle sizes Jean up with a slimy smile. "You're lookin' finer than usual today... that gym membership is really payin' off, huh?"

Oh god.

The 'Belle' tips her chin up. "Put on that black dress with the silver do-dads on the neckline? That thing drives me.... mmmmm... wild!"

Margie and Terry 'T-Dog', they have a good report, clearly!

Jean Grey has posed:
The idea of directly manipulating the charges along Rogue's neural pathways does come to mind- but it comes to mind as what feels to her like a near impossibility, particularly for someone who hardly seems very likely to even have 'neural pathways' in his vocabulary. Compared to what Jean does, that sort of direct manipulation... it would be like trying to use a computer without the keyboard, by hotwiring different circuits directly. Except even MORE complicated. It seems far fetched, although she allows:

<< Maybe it's very broad or instinctive, I'm not sure. Though if he's working at a biological, -physical- level it could be... I can't telepath that away. >> What she doesn't say is that she probably could fight it, by going down to the level of the raw physics herself with her TK. That's a tall order, though, especially these days, and she'd be playing by the same 'one wrong connection and Rogue's a vegetable' rules.

"Yeah?" Jean wonders, sounding flattered when the man compliments her gym-honed bod (she in fact probably goes /way/ more than whoever this Margie is!). "Sweet of you to notice, baby." She even flaunts it a little, cocking her hip to stand rakishly akimbo. She did model when she was a little younger...

So she plays the part. And keeps playing it, right up to a suitably submissive, "Ok Terry," when he tells her to go get dressed. "Why don't you just make yourself comfortable, and I'll go pretty myself up."

Throughout the whole exchange, Jean keeps looking, keeps digging through his thoughts, trying to sort out the logic and history, the relationship between the two... and with the man he killed. She'd like some kind of hook, a bit of a 'why' to go with the rest, to give her some leverage on that invasive psyche, before it comes to pure brute force.

Rogue has posed:
<<"I don't think he's doing anything on his own control. I think if he's controllin' me through some special means, it's just happenin' naturally for him, Jeanie!">> Rogue's near-frantic mind replies back to the Telepath and Headmistress to the school.

On the outside, 'Rogue' just smirks at Jean's response. Terry and Margie seem to have a classical idea of a romantically sleazy relationship. AFter 'Margie' tells 'Terry' to hang out for a bit, he does just that, even giving her a WHACK when she walks past him!

Because, gross dude!

'Rogue' walks around 'Jean's' desk and just drops down in the big chair, like she was in charge of it. Her hands go up behind her head and her feet go up to cross at the ankles on the edge of Jean's desk. After a second, 'Rogue' tilts her head and looks down at her own feet.

"What the hell am I wearin'?" 'Rogue' asks then as she tilts her head down looking at herself. "Woah. Where'd these come from."

<<"Jean.">> Rogue interjects. <<"Please stop him, like immediately!!">>

Jean Grey has posed:
The slap gets a cheeky little hop-step. Really, it's good it's still Rogue on the outside, or this would all be VERY hard to stomach.

Of course, Jean doesn't intend to go anywhere to change, it's just a bit of a ploy to keep the 'man,' or is thoughts, such as they exist, occupied. Occupied with imagining her in whatever outfit, imagining their night out, imagining... probably a lot more.

<< I'm trying to keep him distracted, maybe even throw his physiological responses off. >> What that actually means is KIND OF GROSS so better not to think about it in too great a detail. << But there's... nothing mental, nothing meaningful. Just what you'd expect. A big man who's small on the inside, a codependent, enabling relationship, a life full of bad choices...>> Her own mental voice, though she tries to keep it calm, shows the fraying edges of her own frustration. This shouldn't be hard, he shouldn't be able to do what he's doing-

She hasn't gone far, standing in front of the desk, rather than leaving to go and change, and turns to watch as 'his' thoughts start conflicting. She hesitates, and then walks forward instead.

<< Listen to me. This is a little tricky, because if he's using his powers through you- If he was in a separate body, it would be easy. But he's in yours, and so its your powers keeping you suppressed. It's also your brain I'm messing with, and I don't really want to brute force things. I'm going to... let's call it a reboot. When you come to, I want you to grab control of his powers, fast. If you have to shock something, hit a wall socket, they're grounded. Then I'll try and separate things. >> Oh boy. << Otherwise the only way I see is putting you in a damn coma until he's faded. You got that? >>

She gives the other woman a moment, while watching her body and 'outside guest' having a strange day in her desk, lifts two fingers to her temple...

And things go black.