Teenage Dream

[seeingred]

Teenage Dream

Read More Inside!

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!)

➜

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

➜

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.

➜

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").

➜

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).

➜

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

code

Comments

DAY 2: Scott & Emma

[seeingred scott summers ⊗ cyclops]

Scott nods solemnly as he considers this answer. He still doesn't like having his thoughts read, but is already resigned to it. (He's never been allowed privacy before, so why would that change now?) Emma doesn't mean anything bad by it. And he must, at some point in time, trust her enough to let her.

"It wasn't your fault," he agrees, accepting her almost-apology. Scott looks away from her, fiddling with his glasses with one hand. "The man they saved me from, he..." A flash of Jack standing over him—broad-shouldered, his fists made of diamond. "He could get into your head. He hurt people. Made them do things."

DAY 2: Scott & Emma

[frost_queen Emma Frost ♕ White Queen]

Emma does wonder a little how much she reads the minds of others — she would be doing it constantly, given what an advantage it would give her. But does she grow out of that? Clearly not with Scott, but with the others? With everyday people? She should ask Manny, maybe. Not that it really matters.

What does matter is the thing she already knows: that there's no way her adult self is anything like this man in Scott's mind. If she were, she wouldn't be here. She wouldn't have these friends. She wouldn't trust them like she knows she does.

"It makes sense that you wouldn't like someone reading your mind." As though anyone really would.

She fidgets, feeling a little bad for Scott as she thinks more on the image of Jack in his mind. "...I won't do anything bad with it. Promise. That guy seems like a loser, and I have no interest in being one."

DAY 2: Scott & Emma

[seeingred scott summers ⊗ cyclops]

"I know you don't." Scott has no way of knowing that, but he wants to believe it. He wants to trust her and everything she says to him, and he doesn't know if that's stupid. He trusted Jack too. Jack made promises too.

He thinks about the photo on his wall, and the notepad again. In it, adult Scott had written down what kind of candy Emma likes (Red Vines), and her favorite brand of lipstick. He had a list of restaurants they'd gone to, and how she rated each one. She must have been important to him.

"Okay. You can read my mind." Scott addresses this comment at the cereal box, too embarrassed to look directly at Emma. "But you should really ask people first."

DAY 2: Scott & Emma

[frost_queen Emma Frost ♕ White Queen]

She wants to tease Scott about how much his adult self seems to like her adult self, but Emma's feeling a little more generous with him now. There's a fluttery feeling in her chest that she'd rather ignore anyways, so instead she just files away the knowledge of this list of his. She can bully him about things that don't embarrass her.

"I was going to anyways." This is said with a mischievous smile and tone, suggesting that maybe, if asked, she would have left his mind unread. Now she doesn't have to, though. "And asking sort of defeats the purpose and seems pretty boring to me. But I'll think about it. Now, make your cereal."

DAY 2: Scott & Emma

[seeingred scott summers ⊗ cyclops]

"You are so bossy," Scott complains, but he steps away to do just that. The milk carton he finds easily in the fridge (is he allowed to take it? what if it belongs to someone?), while a bowl and spoon requires a little more searching.

He's conscious of Emma's eyes on him, and wishes she was doing something like reading a book or checking her phone so he wouldn't have to think about what she thinks of him. He showered the spaceship grease off of him and changed into clean clothes, but his older self is a lot taller and broader, and Scott is sure he doesn't look remotely cool.

"Doesn't it bother you that you're listening to things people never meant for anyone else to know?"

DAY 2: Scott & Emma

[frost_queen Emma Frost ♕ White Queen]

"I am," Emma agrees, sounding a little self-satisfied. Normally she would take offense at this, but it seems fine, coming from Scott.

She continues to watch him, even as she notes his thoughts on the matter. While she does understand, she still doesn't stop, slowly stretching her arms out in front of her as her eyes follow him around the kitchen. It's kind of nice that he cares about her opinion of him, and while she could reassure him, her attention is taken by his question.

"It doesn't seem to bother adult me, since it feels really normal to do it, but this is all new to me. I can see the appeal, though. My family is..."

Her lips press into a thin, flat line.

"Conflict-oriented. I'd rather know things, so I can be prepared."

DAY 2: Scott & Emma

[seeingred scott summers ⊗ cyclops]

Scott pauses for a second, mid-pour, and risks a peek at Emma. Kids having difficult families is nothing new to him—he might not remember his childhood, but he shared the group home with orphans and the unwanted. It just hadn't occurred to him that Emma, with her diamond earrings and nice clothes, would be dealing with that. He's never met anyone like her before.

"Your whole family?"

DAY 2: Scott & Emma

[frost_queen Emma Frost ♕ White Queen]

Well, Emma can at least be proud that she doesn't come off as someone with a stupid home life. Although, she thinks, Scott might not be the best judge of that. She gives a one shouldered shrug with forced nonchalance at his question, catching his eye as he looks to her.

"My brother is good, but my two sisters and my parents are terrible. It's fine, though. I don't care that much."

Adult Scott must already know all this, so it's not like she's sharing any secrets.

"Everything is very competitive, so guaranteeing the upper hand seems nice, you know? I think you'd find a lot of use in being a telepath, even though you wouldn't like it."