Xaviers!

The Burglar seemed to gain a level of clarity previously not present. Both outside and in, Basil replied.

"Uhm... alright." The Basil and the Burglar reply together. He focused very fervently on what the Seer asked him to, but try as he might, there was no change in anything. Not the girls, nor the fog. And definitely no green light.

They sighed in unison. It helped nothing, even though it seemed like a sure bet. Why wasn't it working now? That burst of confidence had been enough to push him up the hill before. Wasn't he still here because of her in the first place?

Then a thought occurred to him. One he desperately did not want to share with Melissa or the Seer. But he couldn't not try. Someone else was helping and like it or not, he had to continue on.

"Wait. Let me try something else. Just.... If you can see this or hear this or whatever... you probably shouldn't... pay attention." They both replied awkwardly.

The Burglar summoned one of the girls to him, and they started a conversation of whispers. Then there was touches, though thankfully nothing obscene. Hand holding, face touching, light flirtation. After several moments that probably seemed like forever, the rest of the girls stiffened up, their necks craning and heads turning together to look at something.

"There!" One of them called out. Though the Seer could see... Well nothing new in the fog, it seemed the other female entities must have, because they were all staring.

What the Seer could see now, was Basil's face inside the Burglar's deep hood as he disengaged from the female figment of his own imagination. As had been seen by Samantha and the others when he was repaired, his visage now bore a rather ugly scare right down the middle as if he had been sewn together after a rather nasty wound. It dashed across from left to right, the depth of it would have suggested that on a real person the severity of the would have probably killed them. Anisocoria now plagued his left eye, but he didn't make it look as cool as Bowie. These were the 'scars' the Seer had been previously looking for left behind from the interloper, merely hidden from view as most of Basil was, physically and metaphorically.

He looked her in the eye, and cleared his throat.

"Shall we?"

"Of course," the Seer says, "Lead on."

The Burglar motioned to the ladies, and they began to lead. He looked at The Seer for a moment before trying to pull his hood further down and continuing on to follow.

They seemed to know where they were going, but before they made it there, noises started coming out of the fog. Horrid screeches and the sound of a singular set of wings. The females froze, frightened by what they heard.

The Seer stepped forward, still radiating her calm even as flames shot up along the edge of her sword. "It's alright. Whatever it is may just be trying to scare us away."

The Burglar and the ladies listened to the Seer and began moving again, but they didn't get very far before something shot out of the fog and pinned The Burglar to the ground, standing on top of him and crushing his throat under a hooved foot.

It let loose another scream right in his face, splaying feathered wings back behind it as it wailed at him. Closer now, the screech was ungodly to listen to, like nails on a chalkboard.

In the real world, Basil began to choke.

The Seer springs quickly into action, lunging at the creature, slamming the flat of her blade at the creature's side before following it up with a hard kick. The Seer's presence begins to loom as she pours herself into protecting Basil.

Free of the weight of the creature, The Burglar scurried away from it, fear written on his face.

It made that terrible sound at The Seer for a moment, before realizing she wasn't one of Basil's figments. The creature stopped and smirked, revealing itself to be female, a head of dark wavey hair on it's head.

It would vaguely remind her of another female figure she'd seen in here earlier, though none of the girls.

"You can have him once I'm finished." She states to The Seer, flexing her wings to work out the kink the heavy blows put into her body.

The sword twists in the Seer's hand, edge-on now. The gesture's subtle, but the threat is not. "Do *not* touch him again," she commands as she probes this new thing, trying to get an impression of whether it's from the outside or a part of Basil's mind.

It was definitely part of Basil's psyche.

The new woman scoffed."Or what? You going to stick me with that thing like it's going to stop me?"

"But it's already had an effect on you," the Seer smiles, putting herself between the creature and the others. "Burglar, back to the city for now. I've seen what I need to see."

"Fine with me." He says in a cough, motioning to the girls to lead them towards a retreat. "Hate this bloody place anyways."

"Hey! Where the hell do you think you're going?"

The Seer just smiles at her, walking backwards and maintaining her blocking position as they retreat through the fog.

She attempts to follow, circling a bit like a prey animal.

But eventually she gives up.

"He'll be back without you eventually." She stated, disappearing into the fog.

Considering they weren't searching for anything beyond an exit, the whole crew made it back out relatively quickly, dumping out into a part of the city that was different from last time, but obviously safer than the fog.

"I appreciate you guiding me around," the Seer says to the Burglar. "I'll certainly be back, but I need to talk to physical you now."

The Burglar nodded, and the ladies disappeared into thin air, as if they themselves had become invisible.

"Goodbye Seer. Until next time... "

"Until next time." Her sword vanishes and she seems to collapse in on herself as she withdraws from his mind.

In the physical world, she removes her fingers from his temples. "Well, I believe this is certainly worth further investigation, but we probably should talk about some things before we try again."

Basil fidgeted. This was exactly what he was afraid of.

"Uhm... alright. Which things?"

Her notepad and pen float slowly over to her, "What can you tell me about..." She proceeds to describe the general gist of the creature they encountered. "She seems to think she has some claim on you."

"My ex." He stated, then explained in a flustered tone.

"I mean, not really! My ex didn't have a condition, she was normal."

"A condition?"

"A... mutation?" He clarified.

"Was she an ex before or after your mutation expressed itself?"

"After, but she also wasn't with me until after either.

We knew each other when we were younger, but she was a bit older than I still. She didn't get involved with me until about a year and a half ago."

"You place a great amount of importance on her," she says, in that tone that makes it hard to tell whether it was a question or a statement.

"Yes, though I try not to. It's.... difficult.

They say you always remember your first. Love and.... otherwise.

Try as I might, shaking her completely would be tricky."

"Based on what I saw, I would say that she, as a concept, is getting in the way of some of your abilities. What happened between the two of you? If you don't want to talk about it, it can wait til another session."

Basil shifted uncomfortably, and eventually spoke, omitting a few finer details.

"When we got involved with each other I knew she was involved with other men and I tried to act as if it didn't bother me so she wouldn't leave. Eventually I came clean, she refused to stop, and I tried my best to deal with it.

It all came to a head when my caretakers dropped the dime on our living situation to my parents. They owned the apartment we were living in."

"And they kicked her out and she blamed you?" Melissa asks, hazarding a guess.

"Yes." Basil replied.

"So what happened after that?"

"She left immediately since she had little choice in the matter, not given time to collect anything.

My parents had me sort out what was her's and the help made sure it got around to her.

Then they sent me here. It was rather a timing miracle that I had already finished my associates at Oxford, starting early and what not."

"So how do you feel about all of that?"

"I don't know." Basil admitted. "This isn't exactly a normal situation so I guess i'm not even sure how I am meant to feel."

"Well, ignore how you're meant to feel for the moment. How do you *want* to feel?"

"Rid of it." Basil answered, this time in earnest.

"But that isn't going to happen. For good or ill, our experiences define who we are."

"To a certain extent, that is certainly true," Melissa says with a nod, "But sometimes we hang onto those experiences and instead of defining us, they control us, even if the ways they do that are small or subtle."

"I guess I don't really know how to let go of it precisely.

Every time I start to feel like I am something takes me back there."

"What sorts of things take you back there?"

"Lots of things. Music that randomizes up, things I read or see. Sometimes things Colette does or says." Basil paused before realizing he needed to explain-

"The girl who might be my lady friend."

"Okay," she says. A drawer on her desk opens and a notebook floats out to her hand and she offers it to him. "Before our next session, I want you to try an exercise. When possible, if something takes you back there, I want you to write down what you were doing or thinking in as much detail as possible. I want you to look for common themes or threads in what causes that and we'll talk about them the next time."