Logs:Hell and Back

Hell and Back
Dramatis Personae Heather, Ion, Scramble	2024-02-09 "Stomachs, we can do something for." (in the wake of the attack on Brotherhood Island.)
Location Land of Oz, Beech Mountain, NC
The sun is setting on a very unsettling Oz. It's not just the overgrowth that has been reclaiming the once-cheery buildings, it's not the rust on the rides or the ramshackle way some of the buildings have been edging towards collapse, it's not the half-chewed-away faces on the iconic characters. It's not not those things, to be sure, but the abrupt addition of so many battered mutants, the blood streaking the yellow bricks, the moans and cries of pain coming from Dorothy's abandoned farmhouse (currently turned makeshift infirmary) -- these things don't really help the eerie atmosphere. With some getting treated and some succumbing to their wounds, the cries are -- at least shifting in frequency, shifting in caliber; fewer tears of physical agony and more of mourning, but the evening is slowly growing quieter. There's another flicker of blue-white light behind a window, another cache of supplies (not medical, this time, that's been covered enough, but blankets, now, and warmer clothing) dropped off, but then Ion is getting out of the way before he creates any more patients, slipping out of the front door onto the grey porch. There's still a sporadic sizzle of sparks skittering erratic over his skin, casting stuttering illumination on his scarred face, shaggy overgrown hair and the dark shadow of beard he's now sporting. Around him the air crackles, staticky and hair-raising for anyone who ventures too close to where he's dropping heavily to sit in a corner of the porch, slumped back against the railing with his head dropping heavily down against a pillar. "I have told you before that is not funny Myst-" A click on a familiar tape recorder. After some of Heather's efforts on the island, she had finally collapsed from exhaustion (and some minor to medium blood loss from the scrapes and gouges that pepper her skin) upon having arrived at a safe place to do so. She bobs left and then bobs right as she observes Ion, her wild hair getting wilder through the effect of proximity. Her mouth opens as if she is either going to say or record something, but instead she jabs her finger at the electrokinetic's shoulder, her eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement at this enigma before her. Scramble has been making her rounds in the infirmary, but at length joins Ion and Heather out on the porch. "Nah, sis. He the real deal." She perches herself on the railing, slumped against one of the pillars. "That or we all dead and Mutant Hell is highly specific." Her eyes keep trying to settle on Ion and then skipping past him. "Where you been, dawg? Ridin' the lightning all the way from Lassiter to…" She looks around. "...wherever the fuck we ended up?" Then back at Ion, more closely. "Shit. No, you fizzled out somewhere, ain't you?" There's a sharp tug from Scramble's power and she scoots a little farther down the railing. The zap that accompanies Heather's poking is not particularly dangerous, but it is considerably more painful than the usual static discharge that comes with Ion's touch. Ion twitches, too, shoulder tensing reflexively in time with the electric kick. His head rolls back to look up at Heather, teeth baring for just a second in a quick flash of tired smile. "Shit, Mystique gone 'n level the fuck up if she --" The indicative waggle of his hook spills fresh sparks from its metal end. He slumps back against the rail once more, efforts to sit up properly when Scramble arrives ending only in a kind of exhausted rearranging of his posture. To Scramble's senses, Ion's mind is even more a chaos than his usual overcharged baseline, a jangle of frenetic activity and constant disruption. "Nah, sis, {I been to hell.} My hell, ain't none of you there." Heather hops back a touch and flaps her hand for a second after getting the shock. "It has been a blur. I assumed I was at least medium dead." She nods towards Scramble and gestures towards Ion. "Your expertise is appreciated. Thank you for confirming my sanity." Her hands rest on her hips after her voice starts playing, her countenance passing through a few different expressions. "I missed you. It is annoying that you died. I am happy you undied." There is the tension of a frown as she looks back over her shoulder back towards the farmhouse, "If others could spare me the mourning--" She clicks stop on the device at the point her voice starts to waver and then bows her head slightly. "Girl, you really gotta take any sanity check from me with a hunk of rock salt right about now." Scramble makes a sort of -- well, scrambling gesture at her right temple, which is maybe only incidentally ASL for 'crazy'. "Neither y'all ended up in that jail dimension we gone to at Lassiter, but I sure as fuck thought it was some kinda trippy-ass hell." Her flippant bluster bleeds away when her eyes settle back on Ion, then Heather. "Ionno if I can really say I wish we'd been there, but I hope you had someone looking after you." She swallows. Shakes her head. "Don't think we really knew how much you was looking after us til we lost you. Been steady goin' downhill since, though I'm probably gon be real happy you undied, too, once I figure out how to do emotions proper again." "{Shit,}" is all Ion says at first, to -- all of this; he's looking towards the farmhouse, too, as Heather's head bows. "I'on even know I found all the damn boats or not. Hope to fuck them robots didn't. {Maybe not even know a while yet, who the fuck we mourning.}" His hand is lifting, fingers gritty with dried blood that is probably not his, to rub knuckles hard against his eye. "How the fuck this shit even happen. "Gonna have to do a food run soon if we don't want to be mourning more 'em too. Figure where the fuck to go next, before --" His head shakes, and he's reaching to grip the railing like he means to pull himself up right now -- but doesn't, ultimately. The sparks flutter brighter around him and he doesn't move. "¿Qué carajo pasó? How them spiders get the jump on everyone?" "We had very little warning. Enough warning that we were not taken completely unaware. Not enough to prepare a defence." Heather squeaks out a sigh, sits down on the floor of the porch and crosses her legs even as Ion prepares to rise. Her head tilts towards Scramble as she elaborates on things going downhill. "B has been gone. Dusk has been dead. More dead than you, I think." She picks at the sole of her broken shoe while her voice plays. "Leo floated away on a boat. Magneto has gone off. Somewhere. Who knows. Security has not been to regular standard. And the spiders have exceeded their regular standard." A couple of beats pass, and she adds. "Stew would be good. I would help." Scramble digs her fingernails into the decaying wood of the railing, nodding vacantly as Heather speaks. "Dusk didn't make it out of Lassiter," she adds, her tone somewhat flat. "B's alive, but she deserted a while ago on account of Erik." She starts to pluck at her misshapen 'fro, sees the blood and grime and now splinters in her fingers, then slowly lowers her hand again. "Shit. It's a long story, but he full lost it when the Swords attacked Freaktown, and he hurt Jax pretty bad. Jax got better, Erik didn't. He pissed off at some point, but he'd already pissed B off, so…" Her shoulders don't shrug so much as unslump and slump again. "I'm guessing Leo realized it wasn't safe there no more, and he was right. Wish we'd realized it before it was too late. Hell, I'm surprised we got any warning at all. Maybe the first boats out got far enough they made it, but by the time I got down to the docks? I ain't seen a single one get out of sight. Not one." Ion's eyes snap up at Dusk has been dead. The color is draining from his face, and for a brief instant he fizzles out of space, dissolving and reappearing just a hair to the side of where he'd been quick enough to look like some bizarre rendering effect. There's a low agonized keening in his throat that is interrupted by this hitch in corporeality, and it stops when he solidifies again. He is pulling himself to his feet now, unsteady though he seems, and the brighter gleam in his eyes might be tears or might be the effect of the increased crackle of sparks around him. "Stew. We start with the stew, yeah?" Heather holds out her hand as if to give Ion a comforting pat, but it just kind of hovers there as, between the feeling of her harsh touch and Ion's sparks, she evaluates that such a gesture might not be a good time for anyone involved. She glances back towards the farmhouse, a distance in her recorded voice. "Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable." And then when she looks back between Scramble and Ion, she pops back up to her feet and adds: "But stomachs, we can do something for." "Hearts ain't never gon be practical until we build a world that values hearts, broken or otherwise." Scramble slides off of her railing, draws a deep breath, and finally shuffles close enough to help pull Ion upright, heedless of the shock that comes with the touch. Her power finally sinks into him as it's been straining to the all this while, but what it does is surprisingly gentle and measured -- just smoothing over the worst of the uncontrollable disruptiveness, though the grief and pain and exhaustion remain. She holds him tight to his side, then reluctantly lets go. "Aight. Let's go feed our brothers."