Xaviers!

A helicopter with the X-Corp logo prominently emblazoned on it's side rushes through the sky, beneath it the rolling greens give way to ragged cliffs, foamy waves lapping against them. Clouds wreathe the sky but it doesn't rain, the only moisture in the air from the roiling seas as the machine descends towards the small island sitting off the coast. It curves around the steep cliffs and approaches the structures nestled into the rocks. Satellite dishes and tall broadcasting towers spear into the grey sky over the sleek metal exteriors.


The sound of glass shattering, crimson lines zig-zag like spiderwebs and Nailah bolts awake. Adrenaline surges through her. She doesn't recognize her surroundings. Soft lighting, white linens that are kind of starchy and rigid. A hospital room, that means someone must have gotten to her in time and Hazard is probably in custody. She calms down just a little and tries to sit up in the bed a little. Her right leg is in a cast and her shoulder feels stiff from the bandages wrapped around it, awkwardly pulling against her left wing. For a moment she can't help but muse that the cast is going to be awful to get off. Her thoughts feel jumbled, disjointed and her head is absolutely pounding. She reaches up with one hand and feels more bandages around her forehead and winces when she feels the sharp pain of a bruise under the wrappings. Maybe worse than a bruise, she's not really sure. She tries to pull the covers off herself and is stopped by the IV lines dangling from her arm. She reaches for them to yank them off when she notices the bag and the writing on it noting the painkillers that have been added and she changes her mind. She already feels bad enough without depriving herself of the constant drip of fuzziness taking the edges off the deep throbbing pains.

She awkwardly uses what bit of movement she has with her left hand and slowly peels the covers off herself and carefully turns herself until her legs slide over the edge of the bed. She immediately regrets the decision at the pain shooting through her leg, but the prospect of trying to pull it back up seems even worse. She takes a moment to steady her breath and puts her good leg down on the ground to give herself something to steady herself on. Somewhere int he distance a repetitive beeping is going off and for a moment she finds herself focusing on the almost rhythmic sound. God, I must be really out of it...

She's only about managed to recover from sitting up when the door to her room opens and a nurse steps in. "Oh good, you're awake. Would you like some breakfast, dear?"

"What... where am I? Where's Hazard? What happened? He had a hostage and bombs and..."

The nurse raises a hand and she finds her voice literally cut off mid-sentence as the whole room is plunged into utter silence for a moment. "Sorry." she smiles apologetically, "But you have a tendency to ramble."

What? She'd barely gotten two sentences out. Nailah blinks in confusion, which the nurse seems to take as agreement.

"The blonde villain was brought to the prison wing for treatment. The other young man has been waiting for you to be ready to talk to him. If you feel up to it I can send him in after you had something to eat."

Nailah just nods, dazed. Everything felt off somehow, but she is hungry.

Shortly after her meal of flavorless hospital food comes an announcing rap at the door and the former hostage is led in by a nurse.

The Frenchman holds up a pastry box with an awkward smile, "I brought a small thank you. If my hunch is correct you'll like it very much." He brings it closer and through a window of clear plastic she can see a trio of crepes with brittle on top. Chocolate-banana from the smell.

Nailah had poked at the bland hospital food and eventually finished the most tolerable parts of it. She'd managed to climb back into the bed again after exhausting herself trying to sit on the edge while eating.

"How'd you..." she says as she takes the package and tears it open awkwardly, shoving half of one into her mouth and chewing for a good minute. "These are amazing. Thank you."

"Uhm..." she shifts around in the bed uncomfortably. "I'm Nailah by the way. How'd you know?" she asks, holding up the second half of the crepe before taking a more reasonable bite out of it.

"The same way I know you are precognitive," he says as he drags over a chair and sits, "It sounds insane but I used to dream of another you. I never thought it was real until now."

"Another me?" she asks after swallowing the bite of crepes. Vague images of her future self dance around in her head, although she has a hard time placing them. When had she seen that? "Like... older and grumpier? From the future?"

"From the things Hazard said to me I believe it must have been another reality. She was a little older than you but did not have your physical mutations. I'm not certain her world even had mutants. Yet she had a power and was a hero all the same," he answers, the way he had said "was" seeming somehow mournful.

"Until Hazard." she says. It's not really a question. "He... I think he's done that a lot."

He looks down at his hands. "Yes. She... He broke her spirit and then killed her because his demented game was done. Then he left to start again. All before my mind's eye. It... was the last time I dreamt of that place."

"It's over now. He's not getting away again." she says. It's as much a promise to Andre as it is to herself.

He looks at her again, more haunted than before. This is a man afraid for his sanity and for others that he might be sane.

"You can't know that. I did see him again. Laughing as a version of this place burned."

Nailah frowns and feels herself reaching out with her power almost reflexively. It's... different. Instead of the perfect clarity of steps to take she feels like she's mentally running her fingers over the surface of a broken mirror, the cracks zig-zagging across it's surface, splitting into finer and finer fissures. The thought of Hazard burning this place to the ground seems to... give them texture somehow. A way to tell them apart and somehow she knows which ones those are. They're few, but they're there. It's too disorienting to try and find the junctions that lead there, to try and focus on something else to differentiate other branches and figure out what's different... Her head hurts and she stops pushing.

She's been staring off into space. When her focus slowly drifts back into there here and now she looks at Andre in confusion. "What... is this place? Where are we? You're the hostage he took, aren't you?" she looks down at herself and the various bandages, the cast, the starched bedsheets. She holds the side of her head and notices the rigid bandage around her skull.

Andre returns an equally confused look. "What do you mean? You're in the hospital. We were having a conversation."

She looks around the room, then back at him.

"That... sounds right, but... God, my head hurts..."

Visibility alarmed, he stands and shoots to her side. "Are you alright? Can I help? Do you need the nurse?"

"I... don't know. I don't feel great, but I got hurt pretty bad... I just... you came in here and we talked?" she half recollects, half asks.

"Yes. About Him. At least until you went into some kind of trance."

"Right... yeah. And you're Andre. Sorry, I'm feeling pretty loopy..."

He relaxes and gives her some space. "Has anything like that happened before?"

"No... But I did bash my head pretty hard trying to get that future out of my mind..."

"Hey, uhm, is there a chart at the end of the bed?"

He goes to look. "Yes. There is," he answers, bringing it to her.

"Looking for anything in particular?"

"Trying to figure out what happened to me, I guess..." she says as she reads through the chart, mumbling to herself.

"Dermal abrasions, superficial cuts... deep puncture wound... joint's probably fine... cracked tibia, broken fibula, severed muscles..." she winces as she reads through the list. Whatever they have her on is doing some pretty good work, but that explains why she can still feel her leg throbbing regardless. "Cracked frontal bone and giabella... concussion and..." she stops and stares at the chart. Then glances up at the header with her name and date of admission.

"What... what day is today? How long since I stopped Hazard?"

"You were airlifted in three days ago. I expect your university friends are worried about you, though I understand they had villains of their own to deal with."

The realization hit her like a wave of ice water. What the nurse had said earlier, how she'd been able to get almost out of bed already. And the words on the patient chart in front of her, in a different color pen, added at a later date.

"Anterograde amnesia..." she mutters, reading from the chart. She hadn't just woken up. She'd been awake for a day or two, she just... didn't remember.

"Then perhaps we should continue talk of Hazard until a later date. There is something you need to know."

"Wait... hang on. If this is true then I'll just forget..." she leans over to the bedside table and pulls out the small drawer, finding a pen. How she knew it'd be there isn't exactly clear to her, but she shies away from thinking too much about that right now. She flips over the paper on her chart and scribbles down a note.

Andre (Hazard hostage)
Something important?

"Okay, go ahead."

He begins by giving a quick recap of what was already discussed and supplies his full name, Andre Jacquard.

"Two things actually. First I do not believe the so-called friends he talks about are imaginary. I have \ heard them answer. They are trapped in a decayed husk of a dimension they call The Cage and want to be free, and they don't care which world is harmed to do so. He has promised to help them."

"Second... I know his name."

Nailah scribbles as fast as she can.

killed other me in Andre's dream, hunting me???
Cage - ruined dimension? Hazard's "friends"?

"You mean aside from Hazard?" Of course, why wouldn't he have a regular name. She'd never really considered him as a person, more of a malevolent force, a super-villain. "What is it?"

"It may not be useful, but it is one less thing he can surprise you with. And I beg you to keep in mind that he isn't from this world. His name is Ari... Weaver."

"Great. That's just fantastic." she says, trying to mask her uncertainty with sarcasm. "So he's like my fucked up brother or something. From some other world." she says with a shudder that makes her wince at the pain in her shoulder and something about that just makes her snap. "God, this sucks... All of this. being a hero was supposed to be fun!"

He looks her firm in the eyes and shakes his head. "No. None of that Miss Weaver. Fun it may not be, but I know from personal experience the kind of heroism you are capable of. And I don't mean in my apartment. She wasn't you exactly but in a way, you share a spirit. Don't let him break it even a little. He does not deserve that victory."

"I... thanks. Sorry if I'm not holding up to the me you dreamed about."

"Well, you did save my life. That is the best possible start, no?"

"That is pretty good..." she musters a smile.

"Is this not what every superhero needs? A support figure to give them a, how do you say... pep talk?" he jokes.

"I did hope people would cheer for me beating up bad-guys, it just never really happened."

"We live in cynical times. Good deeds are sadly often viewed with suspicion. Especially those done by mutants. But you do not do these things for something as fickle as the approval of strangers, do you?"

"I mean... not just..." she says, suddenly feeling a little guilty.

"Do not feel so bad," he chuckles lightly, "Seeking approval is only human. I have faith you won't let it define you."

"I actually have an embarrassing admittance of my own. I used to think the vivid dreams were just that, so I began taking notes and drawing them as sort of a self-therapy exercise to ease my mind and one thing led to another and... well, I turned your... her story into an internet comic. I, of course, changed the ending. I couldn't bear to let her die like that again, even as fiction."

"Wow... She really had an impact on you, huh? I'd love to read it." The idea felt a little strange, but she couldn't help but be curious. Not to mention she might learn something about being a hero if Andre is right. At least in things not regarding Hazard... She shudders a little thinking about the fact that this story might well be an eulogy for someone from a different world...

"Then I will e-mail you a link," he smiles shyly. "Of course I had to use much artistic license, as my picture was incomplete and I had no reason to believe it wasn't my imagination to begin with. But I can make a guide for you of which sections are the closest to my visions."