Teenage Dream

[seeingred]

Teenage Dream

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Day 1 - Saturday

Fire streaks across the sky and crash-lands in the woods near the Xavier Institute. The X-Men who arrive on scene discover a small spacecraft of a never-seen-before design. Warren Worthington III risks the smoke and flames to run inside and rescue the vessel's only occupant: an injured human man who says his name is Corsair.

Corsair explains he was attacked and only had enough resources to make it to the nearest inhabited planet in this galaxy: Earth. The X-Men agree to help him and move his ship to the X-Men's hangar. Reading his mind, Emma Frost learns that Corsair is a) Christopher Summers, a pilot who was kidnapped by aliens roughly 13 years ago; b) the father of Scott Summers; and c) fully aware of who the X-Men are, and has no intentions of revealing his real name.

Just as Scott confronts Corsair, another ship appears in the sky, and a squadron of aliens rush the Institute, armed with blaster pistols and electrified batons. The X-Men fight the invaders, who all speak an unintelligible language. Laura Kinney is knocked out by a baton shock so potent it would've killed a normal person. The fight converges on Corsair's location. Scott tackles his father to the ground, saving him from a blaster shot. In this same instant, a blinding flash of violet light fills the room, and everyone falls unconscious.

When the X-Men come to a few minutes later, they discover that they've been transformed into teenagers. Corsair, mysteriously unaffected, tells them that the aliens suddenly retreated after the blast. "It was some kind of weapon I've never seen before," he says.

(The students are totally unaffected, along with a few other adults who were nowhere near the flash of light.)

Day 2 - Sunday

Everyone's starting to acclimate to their new circumstances, but are no closer to finding a way to restore things back to normal. Corsair says his ship can track the whereabouts of their alien attackers, but he needs to repair it first and welcomes assistants. Scott Summers and Illyana Rasputin volunteer, and are regaled with Corsair's (most PG-rated) space adventures.

Emma Frost is overwhelmed, and steals a vehicle from the garage (maybe even their own, which is technically not stealing?) to escape to Salem Center for a few hours. The town is used to mutant visitors from the Xavier Institute, and they're treated with surprising friendliness.

Remy Lebeau is assumed to be a new student by some actual teens, who invite them to watch a movie in the student common area. The actual teens share snacks and gossip about how Rogue is sooooo cool. At least three of these teens have crushes on them.

Day 3 - Monday

Time to be a team, kids! All of the de-aged X-Men are thrown into the Danger Room, and face off against a series of holographic opponents, including ninjas, dinosaurs, and giant robots. Scott Summers is still figuring this out, and accidentally attacks [Character G] in the middle of the chaos. By contrast, Piotr Rasputin excels at combat training, and is the first to take down a Sentinel.

Kitty Pryde catches Corsair trying to hide a glowing violet device—the exact same color as the flash of light that transformed them into teens. After being questioned, Corsair admits that this is the Arka Kyllion, which roughly translates to "Timeline Needle"—an alien artifact that can supposedly return a person to the past and allow them a redo of their greatest regrets. He claims that it's dangerous and he was just trying to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. But as the Arka Kyllion must be the cause of their current predicament, he's forced to hand it over to Ambrose Porter, who believes he can find a way to reverse its effects.

Kurt Wagner volunteers to assist Ambrose. While waving around the priceless alien artifact, they discover that the glowing "needle" doubles as a weapon when they slice Ambrose's desk in half. Oops. Concentrating on wanting to reverse their mistake is enough to make the desk suddenly reassemble, but no amount of concentrating will change them back into an adult.

Day 4 - Tuesday

The aliens return, looking oddly childlike compared to before—clearly also affected by the Timeline Needle. That time in the Danger Room paid off, as the X-Men (and Corsair) now fight their attackers to a stalemate. Charles Xavier intervenes, and reveals that he's spent this time telepathically working his way into the minds of the aliens to learn their language, and bestows mutual understanding on everyone in the room. The aliens explain that they're bounty hunters, and Corsair is an untrustworthy pirate who stole the Timeline Needle to sell to the highest bidder. They attacked to get it back, and to reverse the effects of the Needle, which can only be done by the person who triggered it in the first place—one of the X-Men.

One of the aliens (a 7-foot-tall bipedal lizard) produces a scanner that can pinpoint who's the last person to trigger the Timeline Needle. The culprit is... Scott Summers! Xavier theorizes that Scott subconsciously wished that he was saved by his father, not the X-Men, when he was a boy. (This is why Corsair was unaffected despite being in the range of the blast.) Scott takes the artifact, and everyone returns to normal.

Well, almost. In order to protect his school, Xavier mindwipes the aliens of all knowledge of the Institute and the X-Men, and sends them on their way. The Arka Kyllion is given to Ambrose to study, as he claims to be the only one here who'll be responsible with such a powerful artifact. Corsair is given the chance to explain himself to the X-Men—or at least, to Scott, who's pretty pissed off to learn that his father is a deadbeat and a criminal. Corsair makes no excuses for his lies, but says he's grateful for their help and promises to never bother them again.

Half an hour later, Ambrose raises the alarm: Corsair knocked him out, stole the Timeline Needle (again), and fled back to space...

Corsair

Name: Major Christopher Summers, USAF

Age: Mid-40's
Origin: Earth (Human)
Affiliation: Starjammers
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Blue
Height: 6'3"

Distinguishing Features: Well-groomed horseshoe mustache and sideburns. Blue bandana. Gold earrings. Two blasters, and a cutlass sword worn on his hip. Charming and expressive, which makes it less obvious that he and Scott look extremely similar.

Guidelines

The Timeline Needle weaves different strands of the timestream into the present day. You are replaced with a past version of yourself who is physically, mentally and emotionally a teenager, although you are still "you" and possess some characteristics from your present-day version. (No time paradoxes!)

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The past version is between the ages of 13 to 16. Choose whatever's the most interesting time to take them from.

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The past version arrives wearing clothes they would've worn at that age, and has the same haircut and physical characteristics (so no tattoos or scars of their adult self). Unfortunately, they still have their Siege Perilous mark.

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The past version can have all, some or no present-day memories, depending on what's most fun to play. This includes knowledge of skills (so they could have no memories past the age of 13 but their control of their powers is on par with their adult self, or they know how to fly the jet). They can have more impressionistic knowledge (e.g. "I don't know who you are, but I sense you're someone important to me" or "Somehow I feel like this office belongs to me").

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The past version has their full mutant powers, even if they were taken from a time before their powers awakened or before they developed their secondary mutations (e.g. a teenage Rogue would have all of her adult self's absorptions).

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This is meant to show that the characters are still inherently their present-day selves (same with having their Siege Perilous marks). However, you can play them as either not aware of their powers, or needing to learn to control their "new" powers.

Characters can opt out, and instead get to act as their regular adult self who's now responsible for an X-Men team full of teenagers.

When characters are restored to their present-day forms, they will have memories of everything that happened while they were altered.

Teen Form

This is just to give everyone an idea of how to perceive your character. It's okay if you want to feel things out more before deciding how much they know from the present. Feel free to edit your forms any time.

<b>Character:</b> <b>Age:</b> Between the ages of 13 to 16. What was going on with them at this time? <b>Appearance:</b> What are they wearing? Notable differences from their adult self? <b>Memories/Knowledge:</b> Do they remember anything from their adult self? <b>Powers:</b> Do they know about their powers? Can they control them? <b>Anything else?:</b> ✖️

Teen Forms Day 1 - Saturday Day 2 - Sunday Day 3 - Monday Day 4 - Tuesday NPC Interactions OOC Chatter

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Comments

DAY 1: Emma & Scott discuss Corsair

[seeingred scott summers ⊗ cyclops]

Sometimes, when he's overwhelmed or facing a sensitive matter, Scott's mind retreats from hers, just long enough for him to get his bearings. This isn't that. His mind simply goes blank, thoughts breaking apart like radio static. He doesn't understand what Emma is saying. (He does.)

His hand drops from hers. "My father is dead," he says flatly, but some discordant emotion lurks behind the thought, so long repressed that Scott couldn't name it. It's not possible—but Emma wouldn't lie about this. She wouldn't even joke about it.

(He didn't know his father's name was Christopher.)

He walks away without another word. Corsair straightens at his approach, and some dispassionate part of Scott's mind notices that they're exactly the same height.

"Who are you?"

"Let me assure you," Corsair answers without the slightest hesitation, "I don't intend any harm to you or your people. As soon as I'm able to leave—"

Scott grabs the man by the collar and shoves him against the metal hull of his ship, hard enough to make an audible clang. "Who are you?" His cold tone doesn't change, but the glow of his visor intensifies, working overtime to contain his powers.

To his credit, Corsair appears only slightly startled. It's a slow week when he doesn't get threatened out of nowhere. "Scott..." He looks past him to Emma.

DAY 1: Emma & Scott discuss Corsair

[frost_queen Emma Frost ♕ White Queen]

Well, this was one way she had seen this going, so Emma isn't horribly surprised by any of it — the blankness in Scott's mind, the release of her hand, the surge of emotions in him. She doesn't fight any of it, and she doesn't feel particularly bad about exposing Corsair, either, except that she's stressed Scott out. But he needed to know.

The shoving maybe doesn't need to happen, though. She moves over to the pair, catching Corsair's eye but not giving him much of anything but a stern look before she turns her attention to Scott. Expression softening, she puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Take a moment, darling." For his own sake. She knows he won't do anything serious to his father.

DAY 1: Emma & Scott discuss Corsair

[seeingred scott summers ⊗ cyclops]

Scott registers Emma's words but doesn't take his eyes off of Corsair—his father. Now that he's looking right at the man, it's obvious. Scott feels a little sick that he didn't recognize him. He has only a handful of memories of his father. Someone holding him in the pilot's seat of an airplane. Callused hands opening a beer bottle with a second bottle. A voice, shouting at his mother to hurry as she tightens the parachute straps on Scott. Christopher Summers' face is in none of these.

"Moment taken," Scott says curtly. He does not let go of Corsair. "Seeing how you're in my home, under the protection of my team, the least you can do is answer my questions. Who are you really? Why are you here?"

"I didn't lie, son." (Scott's jaw twitches.) "I'm called Corsair. Mercenaries attacked my ship, and I needed help or else I was going to die out in space."

"It wasn't a coincidence that you crashed here, was it? You knew about the X-Men."

"Yes."

"And me."

Corsair risks putting a hand on Scott's arm. "Only a few years ago. I thought you—you and your brother—you died. By the time I learned different, you were already a grown man. You didn't need me."

He can't deal with this. Scott pushes him away, and backs up far enough that he's not tempted to do something crazy like punch someone. He doesn't understand what's wrong with him. Shouldn't he be happy? When he was a child, he'd prayed every single night for his father to find him.

Corsair straightens up and fixes his collar. There's an uncanny resemblance to Scott as he takes a deep breath, pushing down his conflicted emotions, but he immediately ruins the effect by saying to Emma: "I told you."

DAY 1: Emma & Scott discuss Corsair

[frost_queen Emma Frost ♕ White Queen]

Emma lets out a sharp sigh but doesn't press Scott any further, despite being a little annoyed with his dismissal. This is his problem to deal with, and she has just dropped it on him in the middle of everything and everyone. Her hand falls away from his shoulder and she crosses her arms, watching things play out. At least the older man is somewhat coming clean.

As Corsair turns to her and speaks, she rolls her eyes, resisting the urge to grab Scott's hand again and force him to stand close to her.

"I wasn't about to keep this from him. Also, of course it's fraught right now. It's new information."

Good things can still come from this, though she's not going to hold her breath that any sort of relationship mending will happen between the two of them.

« This is complex. You don't have to feel any sort of way. » Emma doesn't think Scott will take this to heart at all, but she has to try.