Fairy in a Bottle

The most advanced and well-equipped hospital and research center for mutant medicine in the world and home to a detention facility for prisoners with special detainment needs.

Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Cailleach » Mon Feb 04, 2019 12:11 am

The collar hangs heavy around her neck, but not because of it's actual weight. It's restraints reach far beyond the handcuffs attached to it by chains. Her senses, her very presence strains against them. Cold iron filled with the hum of their precious technology lock her into her own mind and shape. Around her are no sparks or glimmers. Only darkness.

The elevator doors in front of her open and bath her in the harsh fluorescent light from inside the cabin. They'd send the Loud Man down before her along with the Secluded Puppet. She'd caught a glimpse of their sparks between the cells cage going down and the collars going on and she'd felt his power flicker and crawl across surfaces but without any implement it had been like the immaterial hands of ghosts. The butt of a rifle knocks her out of her train of thought as one of the two guards flanking her nudge her forward in the small of her back and she stumbles forward into the elevator with a scoff.

"Careful, little man." the red-head snarls at the guard who have more than a foot height on her. "You wouldn't want to upset the spirits by withholding the respect I am due.

The guard barks out a short laugh and glances over at his colleague who just rolls his eyes a little before shoving Cailleach into the elevator cabin. "Very intimidating. You should try that shtick on the others down there." the second guard points out as the doors close and the cabin silently glides down into the prison proper.
User avatar
Cailleach
 
High Concept: Divine Hag
Aspect: Starlight Through Sea Water
Aspect: Made of Nightmares
Aspect: Hungry for the Wrong Things
Aspect: Reluctantly Human

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Cailleach » Sat Dec 21, 2019 10:26 pm

Very few people thrive in prison. Cailleach is not one of those rare exceptions. Cut off from her abilities she's reduced to simply being a young woman and she doesn't exactly know how to act the part. She could almost make peace with the idea of being a caged animal, but being here she's not a monster, not a nightmare, none of the things she imagines herself to be. She spends a lot of time avoiding the central area of the prison where a large open common and dining area sits beneath the observation room hanging down from the ceiling. The only time she really ventures out of her cell is to grab food or the occasional supply of what passes for entertainment. Books always seem to have competition and she doesn't care to butt heads with the Loud Man who seems to have taken up bit of a leading role among the inmates.

But she lays claim to the art supplies. Crayons and paper, but still. And once she has her hands on them nobody ever wants them back. Every single of the waxy sticks is chewed on, the paper wrapping worked into the colorful wax where it hasn't been scraped away by teeth. It's a careful balancing act. Too much nervous chewing and she wastes precious pen, but she can't seem to help it. Hunched under the bed in her cell, blanket partially fixed to block out part of the view out, around her a nest of torn and bunched up bedding and a spread of scrawled drawings on both paper and floor, a crayon hanging from the corner of her stained lips. It's all abstract shapes, tangled lines, geometric patterns or something in between. Sometimes it resembles celtic knots or hermetic linework but it never seems to be anything concrete. Similarly, many of the sheets of paper are folded or crumpled into shapes. It'd look like bad origami if it wasn't seemingly intentionally abstract shapes as opposed to a failed animal. Sometimes facets of the folding are colored in with shapes or plain colors and she's placed a couple of them on top of her bed, satisfied enough with how they turned out that she hangs on to them.

She's in the middle of constructing some kind of hollow sphere out of paper by weaving strips of paper together while glaring out through the door of her cell and at the 'thing' sitting in it's own cell, all the way across the common area. It has barely moved since their arrival. Manikin is what the guards called it. Secluded Puppet what she calls it in her head. She loathes it. Once a person it chose to seal itself away in a blank casing of hardened ceramic and preserve itself forever, locked away from the natural ebb and flow of life and death. It doesn't eat, doesn't drink, doesn't breathe. She doesn't care to understand how it did that, all she cares for is that it always sits there, reminding her that she might as well be the same. The inhibitor collar locks her into herself. Isolated. Locked into one shape. She cannot see the sparks, the sprites, the spirits, can't hear their strange song in her mind. She's being kept from her domain, from her calling. The snip of the thread, the harvest 'fore the winter storms, the freeing of the spark.They don't understand!

But she can still smell them, see the fingerprint they left, the pattern inscribed into their very being. You just need to know where to look. Not with the Puppet though. Nothing. Fragile little egg. Pathetic. She spits, a waxy blob of blue. She drags her finger through it and absentmindedly smears it into a swirling shape as her eyes catches the blonde man with what might be a box of puzzle pieces under his arm. He' special somehow. She just knows. He' been touched by the sparks. Not like the others here, the little girl and her Chittering Machine or the shark-man and his Conductor. No. This one has seen. It's in his eyes. In the way he moves. He reeks of the sparks and she can only imagine that if it wasn't for the collars she could see him bathed in them... Hazard. Not an inappropriate moniker, but maybe not his True Name. What are you? Parasite? Administrator? Thief? Something else entirely?

The crayon falls from her mouth and clatters to the floor as she realizes she's been staring.
User avatar
Cailleach
 
High Concept: Divine Hag
Aspect: Starlight Through Sea Water
Aspect: Made of Nightmares
Aspect: Hungry for the Wrong Things
Aspect: Reluctantly Human

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Hazard » Sat Dec 28, 2019 8:23 pm

Hazard was like Cailleach in at least one way. Cut off from his mutant powers he felt like a tiny fraction of himself. Infinity was denied him, his Chaos lost. But he wasn't quite powerless; he still saw through the veil in his dreams that weren't dreams. And he had The Hate to drive him, The Hate of Order and of the stupid Sphinx and her stupid friends.

He spotted one of her usual cronies now, pretending she hadn't been watching him. But no, this one was different, dark, broken like him. He grinned at her and sauntered over, dropping the jigsaw puzzle box onto the table. The pieces that spilled out seemed to be from multiple sources.

"Mad among the mad, eh Samantha?" he said merrily, "Or are you... something else?"
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Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Cailleach » Sat Dec 28, 2019 8:43 pm

"I am something more." she says with a kind of calm intensity. "Cailleach of the Winter, Collector of the Lost and Lurker in the Dark."

She sells it reasonably well considering she's a haggard red-head just a little over five feet tall even after getting up from the floor and standing tall. The orange prison jumper and holding a fistful of crayons does detract from the image a little.

"Your name is Hazard but who are you?"
User avatar
Cailleach
 
High Concept: Divine Hag
Aspect: Starlight Through Sea Water
Aspect: Made of Nightmares
Aspect: Hungry for the Wrong Things
Aspect: Reluctantly Human

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Hazard » Sat Dec 28, 2019 9:28 pm

"Me? I am the Magic Man, both Traveler and Dreamer of Worlds, Slayer of Sphinx's, Prince of Chaos, and Lister of Titles He Just Made Up."

"I am an infinity in one."
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Hazard
 

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Cailleach » Sat Dec 28, 2019 10:17 pm

Cailleach regards him with a thoughtful gaze and moves right up into Hazard's personal space, drawing in a sharp breath through her nose.

"I was right... You reek of them." she notes.
User avatar
Cailleach
 
High Concept: Divine Hag
Aspect: Starlight Through Sea Water
Aspect: Made of Nightmares
Aspect: Hungry for the Wrong Things
Aspect: Reluctantly Human

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Hazard » Sat Dec 28, 2019 11:09 pm

He playfully sniffed her right back. "And you smell like fish. What's your point?"
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Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Cailleach » Sun Dec 29, 2019 1:25 am

"Why? How? So many of them..."
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Cailleach
 
High Concept: Divine Hag
Aspect: Starlight Through Sea Water
Aspect: Made of Nightmares
Aspect: Hungry for the Wrong Things
Aspect: Reluctantly Human

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Hazard » Sun Dec 29, 2019 7:59 pm

"If you mean dimensions, I've racked up plenty of miles. If you mean powers... well my murderous dear, I am a vessel for whatever the whims of the multiverse decide to bestow."
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Hazard
 

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Cailleach » Sun Dec 29, 2019 8:09 pm

"Bestows... So you're not a Thief. Mayhap a Herald? Or could you really be naught but a Vessel, filled and torn to and from by their very essence?"
User avatar
Cailleach
 
High Concept: Divine Hag
Aspect: Starlight Through Sea Water
Aspect: Made of Nightmares
Aspect: Hungry for the Wrong Things
Aspect: Reluctantly Human

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Hazard » Sun Dec 29, 2019 8:31 pm

"Ooo, Herald," he grinned gleefully, "I like that. Herald of Chaos. Of Chance. Of the Cage."
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Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Cailleach » Sun Dec 29, 2019 8:32 pm

"The Cage... Not this cage, surely."
User avatar
Cailleach
 
High Concept: Divine Hag
Aspect: Starlight Through Sea Water
Aspect: Made of Nightmares
Aspect: Hungry for the Wrong Things
Aspect: Reluctantly Human

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Hazard » Sun Dec 29, 2019 8:52 pm

"A far worse prison than this, though the inmates do run the asylum. They help me, so I work to break the walls keeping them in. Oh, the glorious chaos and destruction they'd bring. I can't wait to see it."
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Hazard
 

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Cailleach » Sun Dec 29, 2019 8:58 pm

"You've been there! That's why it's all over you, like pollen on a bee. Or rather a hornet..."
User avatar
Cailleach
 
High Concept: Divine Hag
Aspect: Starlight Through Sea Water
Aspect: Made of Nightmares
Aspect: Hungry for the Wrong Things
Aspect: Reluctantly Human

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Hazard » Sun Dec 29, 2019 9:37 pm

"I've seen it's rusted skies in my dream travels. You know it?" he asked skeptically.
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Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Cailleach » Sun Dec 29, 2019 9:57 pm

"I'm not certain anyone truly knows it. The land of beyond dreams, where sparks shine brighter than any star. I've seen glimpses in the minds of the dead."
User avatar
Cailleach
 
High Concept: Divine Hag
Aspect: Starlight Through Sea Water
Aspect: Made of Nightmares
Aspect: Hungry for the Wrong Things
Aspect: Reluctantly Human

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Hazard » Sun Dec 29, 2019 11:13 pm

"Nobody but the poor souls trapped there by a system that can't tolerate the truly free. You sound like someone who might want a piece of the cosmic jailbreak action."
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Hazard
 

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Cailleach » Sun Dec 29, 2019 11:40 pm

"People? In the Beyond? Among the Sprites? How do they not perish? They would be..." she cuts herself off with a small gasp.

"Yes, yes I believe I do. I would very much like to see the True Heart of my Domain."
User avatar
Cailleach
 
High Concept: Divine Hag
Aspect: Starlight Through Sea Water
Aspect: Made of Nightmares
Aspect: Hungry for the Wrong Things
Aspect: Reluctantly Human

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Hazard » Mon Dec 30, 2019 12:18 am

"Well then my new friend, how about we start by getting ourselves out of here?" he grinned slyly.
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Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Cailleach » Wed Jan 01, 2020 7:40 am

"I find it hard to believe you'd still be here if it was within your power to leave..."
User avatar
Cailleach
 
High Concept: Divine Hag
Aspect: Starlight Through Sea Water
Aspect: Made of Nightmares
Aspect: Hungry for the Wrong Things
Aspect: Reluctantly Human

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Hazard » Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:14 pm

"The stars haven't yet aligned dear Cailley," he said enigmatically.
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Hazard
 

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Cailleach » Mon Apr 13, 2020 4:20 am

Days, perhaps even weeks later...

Cailleach is on the ground of her cell. The strange origami figures would threaten to overtake the place if she wasn't forced to regularly clear them out, but still she replenishes them. Her cheek pressed to the floor, her hands splayed out wide she looks across the twisted paper-sculptures at her eye-level as if there was some grand revelation to be found. When other inmates walk past her open cell she hisses at them at the slightest sound, which marks the only interruption to her incessant mumbling.

"I can feel it. I can! No shackles and cages of cold iron can fully silence their anguish. They long to be free from their bonds as well. Have to be. Lone in the dark. Ancient and stark. Chip chip chip the rats gnaw. Return your gifts and I will come. Bring help. He's heard. He's seen. Broke him all apart into little bits and pieces. I fear his gift may be stolen, but he's seen it. He will help. Chip chip chip I can go as well. Chip chip chip all the way up the well where they think they're safe. Chip chip chip. Maybe there's some doubt. Don't trust the monsters under your bed. Grab your blanket tight and maybe you'll last the night. Chip chip chip."
User avatar
Cailleach
 
High Concept: Divine Hag
Aspect: Starlight Through Sea Water
Aspect: Made of Nightmares
Aspect: Hungry for the Wrong Things
Aspect: Reluctantly Human

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Cailleach » Sun May 31, 2020 2:30 am

The following day...

Cailleach has gathered up an armful of her origami and is hurrying along the curved wall of cells, to disgruntled and suspicious looks from the guards in the central observation tower. She runs right past Conduit, shouldering the little girl out of her way to an angry "Hey!" and the amused barked laugh of a nearby Reach. Undeterred the red-head comes to a skidding halt in front of Hazard's cell and she stops, quietly talking to herself. "Wait. Wait. Almost..." Then her head snaps up to look at Hazard. "Can you feel it!? In a moment, the heartbeat!"

Hazard might not really know what the insane woman is blabbering about but after a moment of nothing he can feel a swelling sensation, like a limb that was asleep waking up or the restless building of a twitching leg. Weak and ever changing, but for just a moment, maybe a second or two, he can feel his power pulsing through whatever dampening effect the collars have.

"I heard it scream out when something pierced the heavens below and it's been throbbing in pain ever since!"
User avatar
Cailleach
 
High Concept: Divine Hag
Aspect: Starlight Through Sea Water
Aspect: Made of Nightmares
Aspect: Hungry for the Wrong Things
Aspect: Reluctantly Human

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Hazard » Sun May 31, 2020 7:18 pm

The intoxicating pulse of possibility flooded Hazard's mind and a Cheshire grin spread across his face, mad eyes flashing once with a red light.

"Well, well Red, guess you're not as crazy as I thought," he said, hopping off of his bed.

He picked up a plastic cup and, with a flourish, it was suddenly in his other hand. "An explosion would be better, but this'll do for now."
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Hazard
 

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Cailleach » Sun May 31, 2020 8:24 pm

"Crazy? Crazy! Could a crazy person do this?" she exclaims as she dumps her armful of indecipherable origami figures on the floor. Not making the strongest of cases.

"It's... hrm... I thought..." her pointing finger hops from one folded bit of paper to another as if she's looking for something. "That one!" she decides and stomps down on one of them. "Fwoom!" she spreads her arms and wobbles in place as if she was balancing on quaking ground. "And the stone they threw in the sea made waves that reached throughout the world even on our desolate shores!" she grins as Hazard's minor display of power, mouth widening just a tad too much, showing teeth that are just a tad too sharp.
User avatar
Cailleach
 
High Concept: Divine Hag
Aspect: Starlight Through Sea Water
Aspect: Made of Nightmares
Aspect: Hungry for the Wrong Things
Aspect: Reluctantly Human

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Hazard » Sun May 31, 2020 9:29 pm

"Whoever threw that stone is someone to thank," he said, picking an origami figure off of the floor, "Now let me out and help me find someone to shank."
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Hazard
 

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Cailleach » Sun May 31, 2020 9:56 pm

Cailleach puts her finger on her lips. "Always watching." she says and points at the central pillar of the large circular room outside.

"When they notice their fate has to be sealed already. Too many minds to cloud them all. Not like this. But I can help. To find one you like." she goes on and for a moment it's not really clear what she means until she reaches out to place her hands around Hazard's and the origami figure. "You're a cracked prism and these, these are the sparks it's distorting. Can you feel it?" Cailleach's mind is subtle. Or maybe her telepathy is just weak. But Hazard is getting a mental impression from her, a shape that resembles the figure he's holding. In the same way that a stick-figure resembles a real person anyway. What's kind of a mangled flower in paper is a swirling bulb of wings that twist in on themselves in an endless fractal spiral in her mind's eye. And he can feel the flow of space that let him connect two points and teleport a plastic cup get swept up and instead blossom into a surge of something else. The paper in his hands is enveloped by his newly cycled into power and with his thoughts of shanking someone his power grows throughout paper, changing it's composition on some fundamental level until flimsy paper turns into folded sheet metal.

"The Churning Alchemist..." she nods, apparently having named this particular power?
User avatar
Cailleach
 
High Concept: Divine Hag
Aspect: Starlight Through Sea Water
Aspect: Made of Nightmares
Aspect: Hungry for the Wrong Things
Aspect: Reluctantly Human

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Hazard » Sun May 31, 2020 10:46 pm

Hazard laughed, "You are going to be so fun to have around."

He pricked a finger on a sharp corner of the origami metal and chuckled again. He hid it in a pocket and walked to the door. Turning back to face her, he said, "And now we have some chaos to sow. Unless you have a plan?"

Getting him to be subtle was going to be a challenge.
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Hazard
 

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Cailleach » Sun May 31, 2020 11:01 pm

"Chaos and then what?" she hisses. "Deep below the ground they trapped us! Buried already to wait for death. They don't care for who you cut down here among the wretched. I've seen it in the thoughts of the weakest of them! Scare them and they will seal this well. Think! Think backwards from how we crawl from this pit. Even the Molded Shark couldn't pry open the doors." she says with a glance towards the central guard-tower and the elevator shaft it's build around.
User avatar
Cailleach
 
High Concept: Divine Hag
Aspect: Starlight Through Sea Water
Aspect: Made of Nightmares
Aspect: Hungry for the Wrong Things
Aspect: Reluctantly Human

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Hazard » Sun May 31, 2020 11:16 pm

Hazard groaned. "Fine, fine, we'll do it your way. Just let me know when to have fun."
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Hazard
 

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Cailleach » Sun May 31, 2020 11:51 pm

"There's no fun for as long as we remain..." Cailleach hisses. "We need a passage into the well." she glances at the elevator. "The path to remain open and our shackles to be released without setting free the death they hid inside of it. Three gates for which we need the keys." Cailleach's ramblings are accompanied by weak flashes of images that she presumably plucked out of the head of one of the guards. The thick, curved steel door of the elevator, impressions of the prison's stock of inhibitor collars and the bright yellow labels warning about the explosives inside of them and finally the massive rod of some sort of metal, hidden in the above-ground structure, suspended by electromagnet-brackets and poised to plunge into the elevator shaft to seal it. The last one is tinged with the anxiety of the guards who are well aware of what that emergency measure would mean to them, a feeling that's mired in the fact that the controls for that particular failsafe are not in the hand's of the guards that are down here with them, albeit above their heads in the observation ring on the ceiling.
User avatar
Cailleach
 
High Concept: Divine Hag
Aspect: Starlight Through Sea Water
Aspect: Made of Nightmares
Aspect: Hungry for the Wrong Things
Aspect: Reluctantly Human

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Hazard » Mon Jun 01, 2020 12:18 am

"I wish I'd ... Ooh, idea! Bah, turning the whole collar to metal would just make the tracking device go dark and raise an alarm. Maybe if you roll back my powers to that last one I can slip it on someone else so it thinks nothing has changed?"
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Hazard
 

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Cailleach » Mon Jun 01, 2020 5:33 pm

"I'm not sure it's here..." she mumbles, dropping to her knees to rifle through the folded figures. "The Shaper... Stilling... Demesne." On that last one she glances up at Hazard with an inscrutable look in her eyes, then takes that figure and crushes it in her hand, shaking her head. "No. The Font, Balance, Eruption..." she keeps on going through her various figurines.
User avatar
Cailleach
 
High Concept: Divine Hag
Aspect: Starlight Through Sea Water
Aspect: Made of Nightmares
Aspect: Hungry for the Wrong Things
Aspect: Reluctantly Human

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Hazard » Mon Jun 01, 2020 7:06 pm

Hazard focused his fractured thoughts and had an idea that was almost a plan.

"Wait, what about body swapping? Uh, The Mirror? The Coin?"
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Hazard
 

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Cailleach » Mon Jun 01, 2020 7:30 pm

"Maybe... I'd have to wait for the swell of the tide... Balance might do it." she says, plucking out a shape that looks a bit like two funnels connected at the narrow part. "Tit for Tat by span and heft you could exchange a pound of flesh." she nods, getting up to place the tip of her index finger on Hazard's forehead.
User avatar
Cailleach
 
High Concept: Divine Hag
Aspect: Starlight Through Sea Water
Aspect: Made of Nightmares
Aspect: Hungry for the Wrong Things
Aspect: Reluctantly Human

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Hazard » Mon Jun 01, 2020 8:30 pm

As he felt his power shift, the corner of Hazard's mouth moved up into a smirk, "Let's go and test your handiwork."

"If it works, I know how to work the collar control system. Probably. It could be a little different. Then I can use the same poor sap's shift change to get up top and jump into one of the security guards operating the elevator."
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Hazard
 

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Cailleach » Mon Jun 01, 2020 8:57 pm

"You may be forsaking this body for good." she warns.
User avatar
Cailleach
 
High Concept: Divine Hag
Aspect: Starlight Through Sea Water
Aspect: Made of Nightmares
Aspect: Hungry for the Wrong Things
Aspect: Reluctantly Human

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Hazard » Mon Jun 01, 2020 9:21 pm

Hazard frowned, "What do you mean, 'for good'?"
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Hazard
 

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Cailleach » Mon Jun 01, 2020 11:08 pm

"I shan't promise I'll be able to reach Balance again should your Prism shift away from it after you exchange one brain for another. My reach is all but naught, barely enough to hold the jailer you would deposit into your body."
User avatar
Cailleach
 
High Concept: Divine Hag
Aspect: Starlight Through Sea Water
Aspect: Made of Nightmares
Aspect: Hungry for the Wrong Things
Aspect: Reluctantly Human

Re: Fairy in a Bottle

Postby Hazard » Mon Jun 01, 2020 11:32 pm

"It's still the best option I can think of unless you can turn me into a teleporter. Besides, what better way to catch the X-Men off guard than with an unfamiliar face?"

"Also, why use telepathy when you have drugs?"
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Hazard
 

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