1908/A Sinister Plot: Julian's Tale

A Sinister Plot: Julian's Tale
Date of Scene:	31 May 2020
Location:	Medical Lab
Synopsis:	Julian awakens and shares what he remembers.
Cast of Characters:	Julian Keller, Illyana Rasputina, James Proudstar, Julio Richter, Alex Summers

---

Julian Keller has posed:
Julian Keller has been given some time to recover. Painkillers, antibiotics, a chance to take a shower. He slept a lot, as one might expect given the circumstances. In the last couple of hours, however, he's come around a bit. Part of him wants to just leap out of bed and try to run to the rescue. Probably not the smartest thing, though, and he's smart. He's not exactly in the best mood, though, his face haggard.

When he's asked if he's ready to have visitors, he nods solemnly, "Might as well," he says. His arms now end in bandages, his wounds wrapped and sanitized neatly, which does nothing to make his lack of hands any less shocking.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Readily being tapped in to the alarms and medical alerts of the X-Men's Base has an advantage. If those don't actually exist, fine, a hanging alert spell will do the trick if Illyana cannot find Kitty spyware to work with. One Illyana Rasputina may have stepped out for a purpose like, lunch or 'discover evil tunnels Scott talked about with Julio.' Possibly time to run up a Danger Room configuration. Either way, her departure from the Med Lab wasn't terribly long, and the looping course returns not that long after someone approves letting one of the younger, dubious members of the team anywhere nearby.

On the other hand, she happens to have downed an iced tea and otherwise looks comfortably casual. Calm, invariably locked down unless it's club night with the Hell Lord in residence, she gracefully slips around the doorway soon as it might be opened and free to admit questionable individuals such as herself. Hey, could be worse, might be Piotr. "Boo."

James Proudstar has posed:
Appearing practically on Illyana's heels is Jimmy Proudstar, filling the doorway for a moment before he steps inside and moves to hold up a patch of wall.

"Hey Julian." Is the simple greeting offered. No query as to how he's doing because well...come on. At best it's a sarcastic rejoinder and at worst it's a complete emotional breakdown. So he settles for the only slightly less cliched option of, "You need anything?"

Julio Richter has posed:
Julio has been lurking around the subbasement all day, alternately denting the walls experimenting with his powers in the Danger Room and folding himself into whatever nooks and corners he can find to pore over the stack of textbooks his summer tutors have assigned him. But when he heard Julian was coming around, (or, at least, felt the pounding of footsteps toward the infirmary), Ric headed straight there. He skids to a halt behind Jimmy when the larger man pauses in the doorway, trying to peer around him, but has to wait his turn. When he does enter, he makes his way to the bed, not knowing quite /what/ to say. He looks to Illyana and Jimmy, who seem to be settling for more casual approaches, but he doesn't really have their unflappability on his side. Instead, he asks: "The others... Are they...? Can we still save them?"

Alex Summers has posed:
    Someone, probably Jean, forced Alex to go to sleep at some point. As he was on the verge of collapse. So at least he's gotten some sleep, while everyone has been waiting for Julian to wake up again. He didn't quite get out of the medbay for it, so he's just passed out on the couch. And groggily raises his head as he registers people coming in, sitting up as he rubs his face and yawns, then gets to his feet. "Julian..." he rasps, a bit hoarsely. His sleep-addled brain flounders for something to say, so he goes with honestly. "I'm glad you made it back...I'm sorry we didn't find you sooner...but....yeah. Where are the others? Is Emma...is she okay?"

Julian Keller has posed:
Julian Keller shakes his head at James' question, "No, I...I'm...well, I can't say I'm exactly alright, am I? But I don't need anything," he says.

He takes a deep breath at the other questions, "I don't know where they are. We were in a lab with a set of cells. There were force fields. We all got collared with power inhibitors so we couldn't use our mutant abilities. Sinister and his clones weren't exactly social with us," he says, swallowing hard. There's a moment where he shudders, fighting down tears, and then manages to do so.

"She's alive, "he says to Alex, "She was...treated at the same time I was. Sinister made a cut in her stomach and pulled something out. I don't know what. I tried to help her, to reach out for her and that's when they..." he holds up his stumps.

"It's just torture for the sake of torture, for his...experiments. He's not trying to kill us, but he doesn't care if we die either."

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Boo, and hello, the necessities of a greeting. The blonde Russian slinks in with a graceful kind of purpose, not quite dropping herself into a chair or taking up more real estate than she has a right to. But Julian is one of them: Academy X ne'er-do-well, party person, companion in questionable activities. So she surveys him with that frosted blue eyes, arctic weight no different today than last week, last month, any point she returned a full-grown adult.

"Do you want anything other than a heap of revenge served with liquid nitrogen or hotter than the core of the sun?" Turns out the laconic girl can actually speak in lengthier, English perfect sentences. She takes up a position with her hands crossed, feet wider apart, palms placed at the edge of the bed. "We will find them." It's a spoken guarantee.

What horrors are announced, what travesties against human flesh and blood, do not alter her expression. There's no recoil, no horror in her face. No dead silence. No tears welling up. Shadows shift over her eyes, but she meets Julian with a straight on look and only shifts to acknowledge Alex or Jimmy or Julio in profoundly minute ways. A nod, a glance. "We will bring them home. They do not stay an hour longer than necessary. You know this. Who brought -you- home?"

James Proudstar has posed:
Jimmy nods in silence to Julian. Stoic as he may be, at least Illyana and Julian have known him long enough to recognize the bit of tension around his eyes, and the glint of anger held there, even if none of it seems to manifest outwardly in tone or manner.

"That's a good question. Any chance he's just going to send each of them back when he's...done?"

Julio Richter has posed:
As Julio listens to Julian's recounting of what he witnessed, the older teenager is grateful that he burned off the last of the seismic energy he had on hand hours ago. He's horrified, muscles in his jaw clenching. A clenched fist, tucked under his crossed arms, starts to shake, and the saving grace is that it's just a mundane muscular reaction.

"We're not going to wait until he's finished," he mutters, bouncing off of Jimmy's question. "Julian, this is going to sound like a stupid question, but were there any windows you could see in that place?" His powers aren't going to do much to find the missing if they're hidden aboveground.

Alex Summers has posed:
    Alex pales a bit, swaying slightly at Julian's explanation, before his fingers tighten into fists, as his nostrils flare slightly as he turns away for a moment. Is it getting warm in here? He breathes out, then says, his voice tight. "Or anything you can tell us. Sounds. Food they served you. Anything."

Julian Keller has posed:
Julian Keller shakes his head, "Not windows. There was a shared courtyard. We were allowed into it for about an hour a day to socialize," he says. "Mostly to keep each other's spirits up. Dr. McCoy and Gabby tried to keep us encouraged. I think Miss Frost - Emma - was more overwhelmed by the loss of her powers than the rest of us. She seemed lost. Afraid," he says softly.

"Just standard stuff. Storebought cheap stuff you could get anywhere. Soup and crackers. Bread. The only sounds were the machines Essex used to test on us. He has to have some sort of decent sized facility. Somewhere he grows his clones," he says, shuddering a bit.

"I don't know how I got home. I saw the Jean clone and she...turned me off, I guess," he says. He goes to snap his fingers and realizes he can't. For a moment he just stares at his stump, as if seeing it for the first time.

"Maybe he was done with me. Maybe I was too much trouble after I killed his assistant. I don't know," he says. "I'd never killed anyone before. I know you could say it's not a real person, but Gabby's a clone and Gabby's a real person, so the person I killed was a person. I killed a person," he says, his voice empty and uninflected.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
"We still need a strategic approach. To attack outright gives him more material to work with," Illyana speaks with a certain immutable certainty, the way someone says 'the sky is blue' or 'Magneto never dies' or 'No more Maximoffs.' Her gaze is losing its colour steadily by the minute, fading nearly white. The tone remains, though, for as much as Russian ever has a tone. Hers so rarely does.

She looks back to Alex for confirmation of the heat source, and then nods to his question. "You were unconscious. You teleported here. Jean brought you in after scanning you." A short chain of events, but they work well enough to bring the point home. Her hands rest stacked atop one another. "You killed a person to save your life. You acted in defense. Berto did too. Dani, Gabby, Dr. McCoy? I do not think so. But you are not guilty of his sins."

James Proudstar has posed:
"Wasn't suggesting we wait, Julio, just trying to figure if we should expect any more popping up at random." Jimmy clarifies,

At Julian's admission of having killed, Jimmy steps forward, putting a big hand on Julian's shoulder, "Hey...you did what you had to do in about as extreme a situation as anyone can see. He was hurting you, and people you care about in some of the worst ways. May not want to be proud, but you don't need to be ashamed, either. If I'd been there when the people that killed my tribe were there...or if I'd been locked in those cages with you and the others" He shakes his head slightly, "There'd probably be blood on my hands now, too." He lifts the hand and gives Julian a nod, "The point is that we /try/ not to kill. Doesn't mean we always succeed."

Julio Richter has posed:
"A courtyard? So... it's not underground." Julio hisses through his teeth, chin going to his chest. So much for their big plan to locate and rescue the rest of the kidnapped. They still have a point to start the search from, at least, but his earth senses aren't going to be any particular help. Suddenly he wishes he /did/ have some seismic energy to draw on. Blasting another couple of rooms of sub-basement into existence might at least dispel this sense of helpless.

But as Julian winds down to his deadened conclusion, Julio puts aside his own frustration, takes a deep breath, and draws closer to the medbed alongside Jimmy, whom he gives a quick nod to acknowledge the clarification. "You did kill a person," he agrees with Julian, "but that doesn't really change who you are. You did what you had to to survive, and here you are." There's a fleeting undertone to his words that someone especially attentive might pick up on: he's not just trying to reassure Julian, here.

Julian Keller has posed:
Julian Keller lowers his head at the show of sympathy, momentarily touched as his peers offer him solace in the wake of trauma. But then he remembers he's Julian Keller and lifts his head again, raising an eyebrow and adding a smirk, "All right, that's enough, back off. Losing my hands doesn't mean I don't need personal space," he says, although the harshness is leavened by a slightly amused tone.

"...thanks," he adds finally. "I wish I had more to give you to go on. I don't even remember how I was taken in the first place."

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
"Do you want to know?" A quiet, direct question from Illyana. Not a happy one, nonetheless, but it at least asks permission rather than just starting in. Her stance remains wary, taut, as though she expects to spin and hurl an knife at the back wall any moment now. Paranoia is an expensive thing to maintain, not the least because of the constant drain on the senses, on the biology. She glances to Julio and slowly nods. "This is true. Survival comes first. Some may judge the choices you made, but they were not in your place. Accept therapy and healing will come."

She is not Lady Comfort, or Notre Dame Avec Merci, furthest thing from it. Jimmy can give the kindness that isn't readily apparent, but neither is she treating Julian much different than she ever does. "You got game, though. The bartender was very impressed."

James Proudstar has posed:
"Uh yeah, well...we managed to dig up some info on that. You got carried out of that bar you were at by one of the Marauders. Lady goes by the name Vertigo. And yeah, the bouncers and bartenders were hella impressed." He notes with a faint smirk as he steps back from Julian, folding thick arms across his broad chest, "Dunno if she drugged you or if she just used her powers on you or both, but the bartenders thought you were hella drunk."

Alex Summers has posed:
    "Considering what they were up to...I don't think it's worth wasting any tears on them anyway Julian." Alex says with a growl, still lurking over by the couch rather than crowing the injured teen further. "Scott had an idea for trying to track them down...if you can't remember anything, there's still that..."

Julio Richter has posed:
"You've already given us ten times more than we had to go on before you showed up," Julio assures Julian. Hufffing out a breath as he leans back against the nearby wall with a bump, the Latino teen gives his classmate the space he asked for. "At this point all you have to do is get better." That thought brings his attention to Illyana's words, about survival and difficult choices, and he takes some comfort in them even if they weren't necessarily directed at him.

Julian Keller has posed:
Julian Keller nods, "Could've been drunk. Could've been wasted by her powers. Hard to tell. Guess I'll probably be on the wagon for a bit anyway. Except for the painkillers, of course," he says with a thin smile.

"I hope I get well quickly. I'd like to take a few more pieces out of Sinister for what he did. Pieces I can light on fire," he says, anger flashing in his eyes. "He made Gabby feel pain. I don't know how. But he did. I hope she's okay. I didn't see how it...ended. I knocked myself out trying to get to her," he sighs. "Seems like a bad habit."

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
"You drank heavily. She walked you out, and robbed you of any control. Both of you went down the street and she teleported you away." Illyana's succinct delivery is not perfect, but it at least establishes something of a timeline for them to follow. "We will get Gabby back. The others. They get to come home. Do not question what might be, focus on what you can do. What you saw. Was the place patrolled? Security cameras? How were your powers suppressed? Were there rounds or routines you noticed for the guards, any patterns? Did the architecture seem modern American, European? These details can narrow options down."

James Proudstar has posed:
"We'll find him, and we'll make him pay, one way or another. I think Jean's ready to kill him herself." Jimmy notes, "And she's one of the last people I know that I'd want that mad at me." Admittedly Illyana's also standing right there, too, but he's not exactly enumerating the list.

"Probably need to rest up some more. Pretty sure there's gonna be somebody in earshot if you need anything, at least until you get back up to your own room, and then there'll be plenty more."

Julio Richter has posed:
Julio smirks ruefully. "I can't promise I'll get a chance, but if I do, I'll break off some pieces for you," he murmurs, his tone dark and surprisingly steely. Other than that, he lets the others lead the discussion, as they obviously have more of the details needed to piece together a picture of what's really going on. He does nod in agreement with Jimmy's last sentence. "I've been down here pretty much nonstop the past few days," he says. "Metal carries vibration really well, too, so like..." He raps his knuckles against the wall rapidly, four times. "I'd feel that basically anywhere closer than the driveway."

Alex Summers has posed:
    "...at least we know they're alive." Alex isn't going to add 'as far as you last knew' to that. He doesn't want to think about that. "I know if you remember something you'll tell us. Any little thing might help narrow stuff down." He takes a seat on the couch, rubbing his face a bit. "And if the doc says you're okay, /then/ maybe you can go out after him. You won't help Gabby if you're too weak to do much."

Julian Keller has posed:
Julian Keller nods, "Thanks. I think I need to get a bit of that rest myself now. If I think of anything else, I'll let someone know. And...yeah, thanks for checking on me," he says. He's not sure how much longer this will help him feel better. An hour or two, maybe more. Then the self-loathing starts to kick in. The what ifs. The anger. It never goes all the way away. He rather doubts it ever will, at this point.