Xaviers!

"Bullshit! He's... just so scared of you, he built this up in his head. Like Sam and her Freudian headmates." she tries to convince herself, desperately trying to ignore the little voice in the back of her head that has different ideas. Will's impressionable. Who is to say a skilled enough telepath couldn't leave an imprint like this? One much too close to her for comfort. One that Will is at least somewhat projecting on to her. Her avatar hesitates, her attempts to scramble the memory frozen as she suddenly realizes how sloppy her own mental barriers are. Dealing with Will she'd never really needed them, but...

"Well sorry to disappoint!" she says as she thrusts her will against the memory again with renewed effort, trying to alter or even just distort it momentarily.

The walls of the car shook and shaked, twisting in an on itself and reforming...

...into a posh apartment, with a wonderful view overlooking London. Melpomene stood watching, amused, as a tiny version of Will danced for her on a coffee table.

The first thing she had done, of course, was to take it's name. It knew that whatever Mel was calling it--'precious', 'fido', 'sparky'--wasn't it's real name, but Mel had taken the knowledge of what it should be called away first.

The second thing she had done was remove it's concept of a door or a window. It could see Mel and her friends enter and leave the apartment, and it knew that these apartments had entrances and exits, but it couldn't piece together the steps it took to actually leave one. A cage without locks or bars is still a cage if you don't understand how to leave.

The third thing she had done was to take away it's shifting--a mental block between it and control over it's own body. It's shape and content was Mel's to shape, a master craftswoman at work.

Miriam reels from the sudden change of scenery, blinking at all the impressions and feelings filling the room beyond the obvious.

"You can't shake me that easily." she snarls, trying once more to dislodge the other woman from Will's memory. "You're just a bad dream with delusions of grandeur!"

"I came here to get rid of you." she says, a frown settling on her face in the real world. "You're nothing but trouble."

With the memory refusing to budge Miriam looks around to actually acknowledge the situation around her, grim as it may be. But like a photograph or a painting of a great tragedy, she's forced to admit that the way Will's mind has been worked over is incredible in it's execution. And for how old of a memory it supposedly is it's almost disturbingly pristine. Almost a work of art, even if the subject matter is rather questionable...

"You're a bit late for that. Sammy made sure she got her precious toy back after less than a year.

Of course, I had to let her know I had it, first, but who's counting?"

She walked around the table and put a hand on Miriam's shoulders. "What do you think?

"Of what? This? It's terrible, why would you do that to him?" she says. It's not like she could admit to being impressed by it on some level, even though it would solve so many thing, if wielded responsibly...

"Terrible? I suppose it is, in a way.

I enjoy terror. It's one of the strongest and boldest colors in the palette. No one can lie under fear, no one can hide under fear. It brings out the true nature of things.

With a glance back over at the Tiny Dancer, Will's fear level shot through the proverbial roof--just for a moment, enough for Miriam to catch the eyes widening and beads of sweat forming on it's brow, before it returned to its previous disgruntled and embarrassed state.

"Helps keep the riff-raff in line, too. Best when used sparingly, but there's nothing else quite like it.

As to why it in particular, it's just a tool. Sammy, of course, is my Everest. My ultimate work of art. She's mucked about with this one so much, it makes the perfect stepping stone to get to her."

"Am I nuts, Miriam?" she said, using Miriam's name for the first time.

"Maybe I am. But who else knows what it's been like for you? Who knows better what it's like to be shunned and mocked and pitied because of your gifts?

And who knows better how to turn that around, to reclaim the power of your birthright?"

"You don't know me..." she says, although it's obvious she's not really convinced of that herself. The woman's words sound a little bit too familiar even without the added sting of knowing her name. She's supposed to be the one in control here, the one reading people, not the other way around. And not from the echo of a memory...

"Who knows you BETTER?" she smiled, moving around and putting both her hands on Miriam's shoulders. "Maybe I'm not what you want to be, but we come from the same stock, you and I.

Mnemosyne, the world is yours for the shaping. They press down hard on you, but you can press just as hard back. It's really the only way to survive as who you truly are."

"This isn't what I had in mind for Will..." she protests, though not nearly as vehemently anymore.

"Why should I help you. What do you even want? You're just an uppity piece of trauma..." she says, notably not just telling her no.

"I don't need your help to take what I want..." she says, although she knows that's not really true. If she messes with Will's head too much Sam's almost certain to notice and jump down her throat. But this, this is almost seamless even if it's retrospectively filtered and re-evaluated now. "But... maybe I could use some tips." It doesn't matter what this woman did with it if she can turn it into something good, right? Hell it might even give meaning to something otherwise pointlessly cruel.

"I would be honored to be your mentor. And you have the perfect canvas for practicing right here."

"Whyever do you say that?"

"If you say so, darling. I view it a rather different way."

"Why, he's upset with you because it's been brainwashed. Can't you tell? I just picked up the pieces that were left."

"Brainwashed by... No way!" she realizes where this is going. But who knows. If the place he's from produced this woman, who knows what that world's Sam is like.

"Oh, don't take my word for it. Think about it. What was Will like...before the box was opened?"

Mel waved her hand, dismissively at that. "If you say so, darling. I opened it's mind to more useful pursuits. It wouldn't be the thing you knew if it wasn't for me. But you can judge how you would judge--I'm just an echo of a memory. You're the one in position to act."

"Where would I even start? He doesn't... trust me." she trails off, musing. "But he trusts Sam. I just need to find a way to spread that out to encompass me again. The feeling is there, I just need to use it. Use it to cover up this whole mess so he'll actually see I was trying to help. He just had the wrong thing coloring his perception, but that doesn't mean I have to erase that thing. Just paint over it." she goes on, glancing over at Melpomene.

Mel just chuckled. "You'll find that a bit easier said than done, but I appreciate the effort you're putting into it."

"Of course I can, darling. It's just a matter of poking and prodding in just the right ways.

It's far more difficult to change things permanently, but it's much easier to put a good mask over everything--or a coat of paint, as you put it. Layer the paint on thick enough, and it becomes reality."

And with that Miriam reaches out for a different part of Will's mind, trying to find where all the information coming in from his eyes and ears is processed. His mental observation-post so to speak.