[Plot] Skipping Ahead -- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

[Narrator]

((OOC: This is just ending all ongoing plots, specifically to free characters for personal business. I'm keeping several specifics vague in case plot ideas want to be used, either on P.A.T.H.S. or if there's ever another active version of Xaviers, but several people have asked for this so they can finish personal plots, and here it is))
((Edited by Vic, for reasons.))

The exploration into the subspace of the sparks was...let's call it a qualified success.

The Cailleach had, of course, had her own motivations -- not necessarily opposed to the group, mind you, but definitely not always working at the same purposes. It wasn't a surprise at all when she briefly took control of the Will!Sub, sending the mission deeper into the depths than they had any intention of going. Well, perhaps no surprise to the intrepid crew, but it definitely came as a surprise to Li-Ban, who had her own invested interests in their arrival.

Still, the Xaviers crew was a tough bunch. The submarine held, even under the intense pressure. The Morrigan and her opposite number engaged in a battle taking place on the physical, astral and spark planes, fighting in multiple dimensions simultaneously in a manner that felt both exciting and extraordinarily convoluted, as if it was made specifically to show off the special effects in an otherwise B-Tier movie.

And, while all this was going on, they had encountered the Titans themselves. Powers seeking for connections -- and Li Ban, manipulating all of them for their own needs. They had been calling the X-Men towards them, planning on using their connections with the sparks to open doorways across dimensions, to fulfill their own nefarious purposes. And the Titans weren’t the only ones being manipulated by Li-Ban…

It felt like Li-Ban’s forces were always one step ahead of them. While The Morrigan and other mystically-inclined heroes did battle outside of the Will!Sub, the more mundane had to deal with trying to avoid the (to them) very real physical threats, piloting to avoid being struck by the monstrous creatures and rushing to try to fix any damage caused by landed blows. In all of the commotion, it was easy to see how most of the crew missed the appearance of the extra team member, safely stowed away in Victor’s pocket.

Believing that he may die on this mission, and that maybe she might have some answers, the young man had cone to Emilie to confess his suspicions – that he believed her to be exploited by Li-Ban as a sort of magnet lure, seeking him out so that he could be used to open a rift and allow her to escape her prison. That he and the others were going to travel into the space between realities and stop Li-Ban, and maybe even win Em’s freedom in the process. Emilie, claiming that the risk was too great, that either one of them could die from his attempts, pleaded with him not to go, but to no avail – this was the safety of the entire world they were talking about, maybe multiple worlds. But he did relent to her next request, and so she was slipped into his pocket and secreted onboard.

Things looked bleak. Cracks were forming in the sub, letting… whatever it was that was out there leak in. The X-men were tired and battered, both mentally and physically. It seemed like all was lost, a burst pipe breaking Victor’s arm and knocking Emilie unconscious, this seemed like the end. But instead it was the turning point; the sacrifice of Bouba, the spark connected to Will, had given the X-Men the momentary distraction they needed to unleash a counterattack! The battle was long and hard, and suffered from a four-day delay when real life work problems caused the narrator to stop posting, but in the end, they were victorious. And it was thanks to the most unlikely hero imaginable, as Victor Freud had done the only thing he could think of that might save his friends and the world; firing himself from the ship via torpedo tube. Exploiting Li-Ban’s distracted and vulnerable state and disarray in the ranks of Titans, he used the connection available to him via the strange and metaphorical space they were physically traveling in as a conduit, an express mail tube straight to Li-Ban herself. He had expected to meet a cosmic horror, ready to tear him to pieces before turning on the sub and it’s occupants, hopefully he’d buy them some time. And he did buy them some time, though not in the way he expected. Because Vic’s arrival did surprise and confuse Li-Ban, who thought that he had been killed in the most recent attack on the sub. So now there were two confused parties.

It was during this momentary respite that The Morrigan was able to sense something, something that had eluded her for some time. The conduit between the sub and Li-Ban, the very one that had steered the TorFreudo straight to it’s target, still remained. And that link, now weakened and degrading, led straight to the unconscious Emilie: her puppet, her eyes within the sub, her saboteur. Thus, Sam was able to determine the girl’s true purpose, but it also granted her an unique opportunity; it was a slim one, but it was the best chance they had. A Morrigan had created Li-Ban and molded her into what she was now – another Morrigan could mold her again. While Victor and Sam had the same idea, their intended cages were very different. Victor thought that Li-Ban sought to collapse him in on himself to create a doorway, so he intended to collapse her instead, a door cannot pass through itself, after all. Instead, The Morrigan capitalized on the entity’s temporary distraction, and caged the puppeteer within her own puppet, one that could never wield the terrible power the former had possessed. Emilie was no more, and so was Li-Ban, and in their place was something, someone else. Only time would tell if the gamble had paid off in their favour.

The battle had been won, but the toll had been considerable on all sides. There were injuries of all sorts aboard the sub, the Cailleach has slipped off somewhere to lick her numerous wounds, three entities were no more... and the tally might yet increase by one. The X-Teams recovered the unconscious form of Victor out in the abyss, his not-a-psychic body unable to handle the physical and psychic strain of the surreal environment and apparently comatose. But still alive, and where there is life...there is hope.