An Administrator Came to Westchester

[ngm_miscellaneous]

Mrs. Mary MacNeilly had made the hour trip out to a private school in Westchester county. She was the person assigned from the State Education Department's Office of Nonpublic School Services to perform a surprise inspection of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning. It had been some time since an in-person inspection of this learning facility had been conducted. It had fallen to Mrs. MacNeilly to go and assess how the school fit the understaffed Office of Accountability's educational parameters.

She drove her midsized sedan up to the gates. She announced herself on the intercomm as "Mary MacNeilly from the New York State Education Department for a compliance inspection."

She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel as she waited for some administrator to allow her on the grounds.

Comments

[seismic_shockwave]

Kayla was completely physically unharmed, but now she could see what she'd done and all strength disappeared from her legs and she sank to the ground, unable to do anything except half-sit, half-lie there.

As physically tough as she was, she was in psychological shock. Her thoughts weren't at all coherent, just a mess of horror, guilt and self-hatred. One that would be positively toxic for anyone in the area with telepathic or empathic traits.

[wild_child]

"This is... gonna suck..." Rose said, wincing in pain as she forced herself to her feet. Kidneys and liver were probably shot. Small intestine threatening to fall out of her. Bleeding from numerous minor cuts. Huge piece of shrapnel in her gut.

"Everybody... everybody... check... in."

[ngm_miscellaneous]

"WHAT THE HELL IS SHE STANDING FOR? SHE'LL MAKE HER WOUNDS WORSE!" Mrs. MacNeilly was shouting due to a combination of panic and temporary deafness. Her ears were still ringing from that explosion. She tried to do an assessment, but the impaled girl had gotten to her feet, two of them looked awake, and the one by the tree wasn't moving.

[talk_to_you]

Okay, now? Now Doug was running towards the field, cursing in various languages as he did so.

[demonbearslayer]

Dani sprinted past Mrs MacNeilly muttering "She has a healing factor..." under her breath. She stopped, and knelt in front of Brianna. There was no death aura around the girl - always a good sign! But, from the position she was lying in it was impossible to tell if anything was broken.

[marvel_boy]

The whites of Topher's eyes took on an eerie bruised purple-blue glow. He looked up at Doug as sweat beaded on his forehead. The emotions, the negativity, it was all way too much. Below him, the ground started to crumble just a little bit as he tried to expel brute force. "Need...Rachel..." he managed to say, his voice echoing strangely.

[kinetic_assault]

Brianna is breathing but still unmoving. Even if she were awake, she'd be in a great deal of pain.

[seismic_shockwave]

When Kayla finally got up, she remained rooted to the spot, arms and legs shaky as she couldn't help but see the carnage around her.

She took a shallow breath that did nothing to relieve the tension, the horror of what she'd done. Kayla's skin was completely pale, it would have been clammy to the touch.

She started to walk, shakily, like a traumatized veteran, eyes fixing into a thousand yard stare as she half-walked, half-stumbled towards the Mansion.

[wild_child]

"Lady, ya mind not screamin'?" Rose growled. She looked own at the shrapnel in her stomach. Great. Sharp around the edges too, and her without her gloves. This was gonna suck too.

She grabbed it, slicing her palms open in the process and yanked it from her belly with a grunt and more than a little blood, probably cutting her intestines in the process.

Her eyes instantly fell on Brianna. "Cajun...?" she said. "She okay...?"

[iced_cherub]

It had taken Bobbi a little time to realize exactly what the loud boom she had heard was.

She had been on the far end of the property and was running towards where the others had their class, knowing it would be too dangerous to call up a slide.

Bobbi wasn't paying attention as she rounded the corner, barely managing to stop before she crashed into Kayla, in time to hear Rose ask about Brianna...

"Kayla? Kayla you okay?" With the others there she was pretty sure someone was dealing with Brianna. One little cold hand reached up to take Kayla's, sorry if it's a little too cold, icecube jr's panicked.

[ngm_miscellaneous]

The ringing in Mrs. MacNeilly's ears was getting softer, but it still interfered with her ability to hear anything. She didn't know she was yelling, and she could hear what the young girl with the horrific wound was saying. Her brows knit together trying to piece together the words when Rose ripped the huge chunk of metal out of her body.

"OH MY GOD! What the hell are you doing?" She shrugged her coat off and tried to press it against the wound spurting blood.

[talk_to_you]

This was all very quickly turning into seventeen different kinds of bad.

Doug focused up his thoughts. RACHEL!

He focused on Topher, keeping his voice even. "Stay with me, Topher. It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay."

[nohoundsallowed]

Doug's wife had been at a conference. She had been feeling the various emotions coming from her husband, but as she had been presenting she could not exactly step away and deal with it.

She had a breather now.

What is it, Doug? And she used that moment to grab what info she could from Doug's mind. The link was open enough he could have seen what she had been doing. Get closer to Topher. I may need a bridge between us until I can get to the school.

Despite that, she was reaching out with her telepathy to Topher as she raced to her car. She would help him bulk up his shields as needed and help him get rid of what had built up.

[demonbearslayer]

Dani looked around with quick motions, taking in the catastrophe in progress. Someone needed to try and stop it from getting any worse.

"Everyone!" She yelled with as much volume as she could. "It's ok! No permanent damage done!"

She cut her eyes to Brianna. At least, she hoped nothing was permanent.

"Just be calm. Not like this is the first training exercise to go a little wrong. We've got this."

She looked over towards the mansion. "Bobbi. Take Kayla over there..." Dani pointed at the base of a large tree. "...and help her sit down. She looks a little shaky."

[marvel_boy]

Rachel, Topher reached out with his mind. Animus.

Pause.

Also, bad lady!

His thoughts were not entirely cogent, the poor boy.

[seismic_shockwave]

Kayla looked at Bobbi for a moment. "M'not hurt." Her own hand was colder than it should be, cool, sweaty and clammy. She didn't resist being shown to the tree, and sat down willingly (though very shakily) enough, though she still looked like she was a thousand miles away.

"I'm not hurt." She said again, a little more clearly. "I did this." She murmured it a couple more times, with a detached sadness, without really looking directly at Bobbi.

"This is what I am."

[wild_child]

Rose gave the woman a shove. "Lady, cool it! I'm fine!"

Okay, not fine, because she was regrowing major organs, but the cuts on her hands had healed almost immediately, and the space previously occupied by shrapnel was closing before her eyes.

[iced_cherub]

Bobbi fought a moment, half tempted to scoot away from Kayla, but didn't, it had been an accident.

"It's okay Kayla, it'll be okay they'll be fine..." She wasn't sure, but she hoped it helped Kayla." She didn't glance over to Rose or Brianna yet, scared that they wouldn't be. The kid was going to need a lot of hot choco when this was over!

[ngm_miscellaneous]

Mrs. MacNeilly staggered back at being pushed. She looked pretty astonished when her make-shift compress fell away to show Rose bleeding less.

"What is going on here?" She turned around to see the destruction to property. This was not the educational institution she had come to inspect. That was a prestigious school. This had the makings of a terrorist bootcamp. Her face darkened some as her hearing slowly went back to normal.

[talk_to_you]

Doug stepped closer to Topher, close enough that he could reach out and touch him if need be.

He heard Macneilly talking, but didn't pay it any attention. He was focused on Topher right now.

"It's going to be okay," he repeated.

[nohoundsallowed]

Doug's proximity to Topher helped strengthen Rachel's reach. Without the rapport with her husband, this would be a lot hard and she would be crashing into that semi.

Rachel swerved on the road and mashed her foot on the gas. She was splitting her attention with the bulk of the focus on her younger cousin.

I'm here, Topher. We'll hold it back. Doug was looped in just because he was her focal point to reach Topher easier. I can't get rid of completely. Not at this distance, but I can cage it until I get there. A psychic prison for Animus. Just think about a box made of bars. Bars with no room to reach out between. Envision it, Topher. Give the psychic energy I'm giving you form. Once it's held, Doug will take you to a very quiet room away from everyone else.

[marvel_boy]

Topher closed his eyes and concentrated. He could hear the woman screaming about people being hurt, and he could feel Bobbi's worry and Kayla's deep regret and Rose's pain and Doug's general freaking out and ohgodohgodohgodblockitout, Topher!

He punched his hands into the ground, literally trying to ground himself. He could fly up away, expend some energy that way, but that would take him away from Doug, thereby potentially severing his connection with Rachel.

He imagined a cage made from bright green fiery energy, and Animus getting locked in inside of it. After all, Animus couldn't get out.

Things had gone bad enough as it was.

[seismic_shockwave]

Somewhere, Kayla dimly recollected that it was a good idea to stick her head between her knees. Bring it down a little so the blood didn't have to pump as hard. She tried her best to just block everything out, to just not deal with things that she had no capability of dealing with right now.

The problem was that as the dull edge of shock faded slightly, her awareness of the magnitude of what she'd done became bigger and bigger.

Once upon a time, she could have relied on faith, on something far greater than she could ever be. On a living family, but she'd lost all that.

Due to her mutation.

The same mutation that was causing all the chaos around them.

[wild_child]

"Uh... wouldja believe we're rehearsing a play?" Rose said, in response to the question.

[demonbearslayer]

Dani shot Rose a look. That wasn't helping. The she gently touched the sides of Brianna's neck... no obviously broken or displaced vertebrae, but she thought it would still be a good idea to get her on a stasis field backboard, and into the infirmary.

"Bobbi! Kayla!" She pointed over at the two girls. "Go to the infirmary and bring me Trauma Pack 3 - stat!"

What was a little advanced Shi'ar medical equipment after all that Mrs. MacNeilly had already seen?