earth_367 | The Demutanator

What's Up?

The residents of the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters wake up one morning to find that their powers don't seem to be working. Like, at all. Though this initially leads to some distress (even though everyone is safe and healthy!), within a day they track down the source of the problem and get to work fixing it! They'll just have to deal with being normal humans for a few days whenever they're at the school. It's fiiiiine.

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February 21st: Jean Grey, unsure of what else to do, decides to head out for some outdoors time, and finds that about a mile away from the school, their powers suddenly start working again. Well, at least it seems to be localized.

Manuel de la Rocha is minding their own business in their room when they hear a loud bang outside. Almost like someone running into a door or a wall... They go out to find Kitty, and any others who have witnessed her mistake.

February 23rd: Scott Summers runs a game of tug-of-war (classic mud puddle included) with the kids since it's the only time they can truly play powerless. It's actually kind of a hit, and the students beg them to run more games in the future.

February 21st

On a bright, sunny day, the residents of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters awaken to a strange and somewhat troubling situation - all of their powers are gone, though otherwise everything is painfully normal. Kurt Wagner is the first to notice, and does some quick research and discovers nothing in the news about this phenomenon at all. In fact, no other mutants anywhere seem to be affected, leaving them even more baffled.

February 22nd

The team pinpoints a child's clubhouse in a nearby park, and inside they find twelve year old Buster McKeever and a strange contraption. He tells them that he built this because his best friend, Opal Owens, was struggling with her powers (the ability to possess inanimate objects for short periods of time), and he wanted to make her life easier. He was able to achieve this because of his powers, which give him super intelligence, but once he turned the thing on... well, he's got no idea how to turn it off since he's back to a regular twelve year old's IQ. Notes he wrote suggest that simply turning it off isn't an option, and while it will run out of power within a month, the X-men aren't willing to wait that long. But at least they know the cause! Kitty Pryde updates everyone on their findings.

February 23rd/24th

With the problem sorted out and anyone who wants to helping with disabling the machine, there's nothing to do but just go about life as much as they can.

February 25th

After a few days of work they're able to safely turn off and dismantle the machine, which used a piece of extra-dimensional technology to make it all work. Luckily, after that's destroyed, there's no chance of replicating it or its effects, a relief to everyone. After talks with Buster and Opal's parents, the two agree to join Xavier's to hone their abilities, and maybe be a little bit more careful with mysterious tech.

FEB 21 | FEB 22 | FEB 23 | FEB 24 | FEB 25 | OOC

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Edited Date: 2025-02-21 01:57 pm (UTC)

With a heavy sigh and wounded pride, Kurt pulls up a program for the danger room. It's the introductory obstacle course for freshmen with no prior athletic experience. He and kitty had personalized it to be a classic Robin Hood experience, where the students must escape through Nottingham with a small weight (stealing from the rich to give to the poor, naturally).

Kitty and Kurt's cheat codes have both been indefinitely turned off.

"When is the last time you did this with no powers?" he asks. "Genuinely no powers, not just pretending no powers."

Kitty insists on turning on music for their experience, because maybe they'd be a little less inclined to be morose with Oo-De-Lally ringing sweetly the background. It doesn't work immediately.

"Years." She admits, "I try to stay solid to take some hits, sometimes. But phasing's an instinct. I'm not even sure if solid me is my natural state." It certainly doesn't feel like it. She and the Professor had some talks about that; whether she's consciously making herself solid or making herself phase. It's a bit of a mystery, but the way she feels like someone's cut off one of her limbs now seems to hold the answer. "Have you ever tried to do it without most of your powers?"

His current abilities and appearance are so far removed from what he could even try before that she winces pre-emptively even asking.

Kurt steps into the hologram, and his clothes change to reflect his role as a bandit with a heart of gold. “Without teleporting? Of course! I encourage my students to make sure they can approach problems without blasting a hole through them,” he says proudly, but as he tries to spin the practice sword in his hand, his pinky catches it on the turn and it clatters to the ground.

Kurt sighs, irritated.

“But there is more to my mutation than teleporting. My whole body is different now. I’m not as fast. Not as coordinated. Like your little Buster, I’m just a normal man.”

Kitty's at least been in her body before, without powers. Before following him, she closes her eyes for just a second and tries to summon all the dancing and combat training that body had done. Before it ever knew how to be intangible. It makes her feel just a little better to step in, then look down, and have a cute little green cloak. So that's nice.

"I know." She sighs, in empathy. "But not just any normal man. You still know how to move more than other people. You'll get it. It's just gonna be different, for a little while." She demonstrates a sword spin of her own, slowly, trying to emphasize what to do with her pinkies. "Is it super weird?"

Kurt mimics her hand motion without the sword a couple times before picking it back up. "Ja, but it's getting better. I've mastered running up stairs. Running down them is a bit more of a risk. How are you and solid walls getting along?"

Kitty, meanwhile and very gently, tries doing a karate chop on a tree. That training is still there, too,but she concentrates on the way it's physical and solid against her foot, rather than cutting through the other side. Then a little quicker, again, once more.

"Better than we started, but I'd still enjoy revenge." She rubs her nose gingerly. "And if it makes you feel better, I don't know that anyone's particularly good at running downstairs."

"I was very good at it," Kurt insists, even though he mostly just teleported or otherwise parkoured his way down the mansion's staircases. "Has Peter kissed your nose better yet, or...?"

He tries to spin the sword in his hand again, and it clatters to the floor once more. This is divine punishment for bringing up Kitty's situationship.

"Ugh. No." She whacks her own play sword against the tree this time, not loving how static she feels. Usually, she could clear half the field in minutes. Now, she has to whirl and face the first of the fake sheriffs using only her own momentum.

"He wanted to go out this weekend. I had to say no." She tries for non-lethal movement, like she would with a normal enemy,but she's not as fast as she would be normally, and her shoulder gets hit as she tries to dodge. "He sent me a Luke blowing up the Death Star gif and said he understands."

She sidesteps another attack. Barely.

SATURDAY: Kitty & Kurt

blauerdamon kurt wagner ⚔️ nightcrawler - Date: 2025-02-27 02:51 am (UTC) - Expand

Emma is seated on her bed in a romper, chewing on a Red Vine (cheap, disgusting, an occasional guilty pleasure) as she watches Manny organize her bedroom. Normally she feels bad letting him do too much of this, but stress cleaning works for him, and his room is too immaculate to be of any relief. And honestly, hers is in worse shape than usual.

So here Manny is, currently in the midst of trying to organize her dizzying array of books, half of which she should probably return to the library.

"One of the children gave me a look today that I couldn't make sense of and I almost yelled at him."

In some ways, Manuel is predictable. When he feels out of control, he's drawn toward anything that gives him the sensation of control. Even the mundane. So when he'd stopped by to check in with Emma and found her room in a state of utter disarray, he'd simply fallen into the task and hasn't stopped pacing around her room throughout their entire conversation. Keeping himself busy doesn't make up for the absence of his empathic sense, the void in his awareness that's making him feel so disconnected and alone with himself and hollow, but it helps.

Now, shifting through another small pile of unsorted books with disparate subjects, he pauses to glance over at his friend and smiles tightly. He knows the feeling.

"And what did you do instead?" he inquires mildly. Nothing about his tone suggests that the option of yelling is at all out of line.

With a dramatic sigh Emma falls to her side, taking another bite of her Red Vine as she watches the now slightly obscured Manny continue to work on her room. Despite his proximity she, too, feels disconnected and alone, which just makes her sigh again.

"I told him to explain himself, and he said he just needed to sneeze." She sounds unconvinced of this, as no sneeze followed, but she also recognizes that her mood is sour and she's sensitive to being as blind as she is now.

"I couldn't very well do anything about it because technically he didn't do anything wrong, but they all know they can get away with more right now."

Edited Date: 2025-02-22 09:28 pm (UTC)

"Technically," Manuel agrees, willing to give Emma's instincts the benefit of the doubt and attribute guilt to the unnamed student in this moment if it will give his friend any amount of consolation. It doesn't matter. But he doubts it will. The truth is that they're both out of sorts without their powers, struggling to navigate a world that's suddenly very different and closed and quiet. It's difficult to feel certain about anything.

Frowning, he turns the book he's holding over in his hands, reads the information on the cover, and places it into one of the piles around him on the floor. Soon, they'll all be deposited into their new positions on the shelf and some small part of him will feel sated. Probably. He echoes her sigh.

"...Are you worried they're going to do something stupid?"

It's annoying how much she just wants to thrash around on her bed like a toddler having a tantrum, but Emma remains still, finishing her candy as she continues to watch Manuel. Then, after a long moment, she shifts, pulling herself over to the side of the bed where Manny is doing his organizational work. She wonders if this is helping him yet at all.

"I don't know, maybe? I just hate not knowing. It makes me... nervous. It's been so long since I haven't just been able to know most things." Yet another sigh. "I'm sorry to preach to the choir, cariño."

Manuel places another book onto another pile, then turns to look at Emma. He reaches out to smooth a bit of her hair that's become unruly in the midst of her restless tossing and turning, then shakes his head.

"...Talking's the only way we can connect right now, no? So. Better to talk."

He knows that this isn't as different for him as it is for her. With her mental defenses, he almost never has access to her emotions anyway and often what he does sense is what she chooses to share with him. But she has full access to him. Every memory, every thought, every feeling. He's become accustomed to that too. To not always having to find the right words for her to know what he thinks. And, because it's her, that's all right.

He pulls in a breath and rolls his shoulders, trying to find his way to those right words now but falling short. Instead, he picks up another book, examines it, and sorts it.

"...A lot of these aren't even yours, you know," he points out after a pause, smiling at the absurdity of it despite himself. "Tu ladrona."

Emma leans a little into the touch, comforted by it and also glad to have her hair sorted. Moping on her bed or not, she can't be looking disheveled.

"I know. I'm being petulant because I just want my powers back. I suppose we should be grateful that we know an end is in sight, but it's difficult."

She folds her arms in front of her so that she can rest her chin on them before actually laughing a little at the accusation of theft.

"I'll return them eventually. Though... I did forget I had that one. And that one also. Oops."

"Will you?" Manuel shoots back, tone light and openly skeptical as he moves on to the next book. This one covers the topic of superconscious telepathy and is almost certainly from the personal library of Charles Xavier; he holds it up to illustrate his point before placing it into the appropriate pile.

Then he goes quiet, reluctantly dwelling on what she'd said before. He supposes he ought to be grateful or relieved now that they know what's happening, and on some level he is, but what continues to rise to the surface instead is the disquiet of how unlike himself he feels without his powers. He wonders if she feels the same way but can't quiet bring himself to ask.

"...we could leave," he points out instead, "Come back when this is over." His sullen tone makes it clear he doesn't care for the idea, though.

SATURDAY: Manuel & Emma, evening

frost_queen Emma Frost ♕ White Queen - Date: 2025-02-25 10:48 pm (UTC) - Expand

SATURDAY: Manuel & Emma, evening

empata Manuel de la Rocha (Empath) - Date: 2025-02-26 04:12 pm (UTC) - Expand

SATURDAY: Manuel & Emma, evening

frost_queen Emma Frost ♕ White Queen - Date: 2025-02-26 10:43 pm (UTC) - Expand

SATURDAY: Manuel & Emma, evening

empata Manuel de la Rocha (Empath) - Date: 2025-02-27 01:34 am (UTC) - Expand

SATURDAY: Manuel & Emma, evening

frost_queen Emma Frost ♕ White Queen - Date: 2025-02-27 01:39 am (UTC) - Expand

SATURDAY: Manuel & Emma, evening

empata Manuel de la Rocha (Empath) - Date: 2025-02-27 03:54 am (UTC) - Expand

SATURDAY: Manuel & Emma, evening

frost_queen Emma Frost ♕ White Queen - Date: 2025-02-28 12:03 am (UTC) - Expand

It's a good thing that Kitty gave Scott a few hours of notice, because he spends too long dawdling in the wine cellar, trying to decide which bottles to steal. Charles Xavier is in no state to care about who drinks his champagne, but Scott is still too rule-abiding to touch the most expensive ones. In the end, he picks out two bottles that are good but still easy to replace on the next time he drives into town.

"Special delivery," he calls out before entering the kitchen, giving the girls time to cut off any secret conversations. (Not that Scott thinks they'd be talking about him. Or hopes for it. But just in case.)

Edited Date: 2025-02-24 01:31 am (UTC)

Kitty interrupts her next sentence, whatever she was about to say to Jean, by stating very quickly,

"Oh yeah, I told Scoot he should bring champagne so it'll be an actual party. Just him, don't worry. Come in!"

This is so Scott will walk in and prove that it's fine so she doesn't have to defend herself for taking the liberty to arrange this.

"Hi, Scott," Jean says, long-suffering and just glad she opted not to wear the necklace he'd given her this evening.

"Hi, Jean," Scott says in a remarkably normal voice, except that he stares at Jean for one second too long before remembering to add, "Hi, Kitty."

He sets the bottles on the counter and goes to fetch glasses. He will take Xavier's best this time.

Yep. Still weird.

"Hi, Scoot." She says in a dead ringer monotone impression. Then, for full circle's sake. "Hi again, Jean."

She goes back to the icing rose she's doing.

"Hi, Kitty," Jean says in return, popping a chocolate chip into her mouth before pointedly returning her attention to Scott, as if daring him to speak first now that all possible salutations have been exchanged.

There are young men who would be terrified of the expression on Jean's face, but for Scott, this is just how she normally looks at him.

"Do we have candles?" He sets down three crystal champagne flutes, and frowns slightly. Normally he'd place them exactly the same distance apart in an equilateral triangle, and it sort of bothers him that he can no longer measure that distance by sight. He nudges one flute two millimeters to the left.

"And I already told Lockheed it'd be a fire hazard if he lights them." She spares an apologetic glance to the dragon behind her.

Kitty busies herself with setting up twenty-three candles on the cake, in as complicated a spiral pattern as she can manage. "You know, it's cool we're all the same age again." She offers, to perhaps invoke goodwill and a remembrance that this really is the first birthday they've been able to celebrate together in at least a little while.

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