Betsy and Ororo - Hella Backdated
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ax_mainBetsy goes looking into this whole Danger Room thing, and finds Ororo. (No, we didn't forget to put this up, hush.)
Ororo was reviewing some of the stats on her last Danger Room sessions, sitting at the commands and going over the data displayed on a screen. She was mechanically drumming her fingers on the desk, and ignoring what was going on inside the Room; it was none of her business, really.
Betsy let herself into the control room. She'd been told of a 'Danger Room' and curiosity had won the day sooner rather than later. Someone was in the room itself, so she had not even tried that, but the door to the control had swung open easily and she opened it to find another teenager wth shocking white hair. "Good afternoon."
Ororo looked over curiously as the door opened, then smiled at the new face. "Hi. You're - one of our English rescues?" Her accent clearly set her apart from the native English speakers, still.
"Indeed." Betsy smiled back, and stepped in a bit closer to see what the other girl was working on. "I'm Betsy. It's a pleasure to meet you...?"
"Ororo," the Black mutant supplied. She didn't think to hide what she had been looking at; her stats were no secret, for all that the charts would probably look a little obscure to someone who wasn't familiar with the Danger Room. "How are you settling in? How's the jet lag?" She had experienced it herself, but it hadn't been that bad - she'd been able to reset her clock fairly quickly.
"Ororo," Betsy repeated, committing it to memory even as she began reaching out psychically. "And it's not been as hellish as it might have been. I was keeping odd hours before I came here, which undoubtedly helped."
"Night owl?" Ororo asked curiously.
"Just a very strange week," that, from her tone, could have meant anything from the real answer to too many nights out with friends. "So, Ororo, what are you up to?"
As she asked, she began searching for bad intentions; one could never be too careful.
"Oh." Her gaze turned back to the screen. "Reviewing stats, seeing what I need to work on most."
Nothing nefarious, so far as Betsy could find. Just a student, and a genuinely well-intentioned one at that. "This training room is for your mutation, isn't it?" Betsy asked, leaning in closer to get a look at the tables and numbers. "What is your mutation?"
"Weather control," Ororo replied, leaning away to let Betsy have a look. She had nothing to hide, after all. "What's yours?"
Before she answered, and Ororo became more aware of what might or might not be going on in her head, Betsy carefully withdrew. "Telepathy," she replied easily. The visions she kept to herself - Xavier might think them mutation, but Betsy could not say with certainty they were not simply madness.
Ororo accepted that with a small nod. "It's not just about mutation training. It's also about combat training, in general. It's where X-Force trains."
"Ah, of course. X-Force. Are you on it?" Betsy queried.
"Yes," Ororo confirmed, expecting more questions. New students always had questions about it, and she understood them. She probably still had questions about it, and she was part of it.
"Why?" It was a genuine question. Warren Worthington had always had a white knight streak, and she suspected the rebellion involved was attractive to him too. So that she understood. But why would anyone else join the Professor's little vigilante outfit?
Ororo was amused by the broadness of that question, and did nothing to hide it. "To help people?"
"Mmm." Betsy hummed thoughtfully. "But why through those means?"
"I don't believe in turning a blind eye," Ororo replied simply. "And there's a lot I can do, with my mutation."
Betsy nodded slowly, more to signify understanding than agreement. Perhaps America simply had not formed its own version of STRIKE. Perhaps it had, and these students simply did not know about it yet. "I believe I met some of your X-Force," Betsy said.
Ororo nodded. "You did."
"So does the Professor not send the lot of you out each time? How big is this...club?" Betsy asked curiously. She'd have remembered if Ororo had been there, after all.
Ororo actually laughed at the word Betsy settled on, but did not comment. "There's many of us. Maybe 20 or so?"
Betsy actually smiled at the other girl's laughter, appreciating the levity and ease it brought to the moment. Well, well, well. Charles Xavier really had assembled quite a collection, then, hadn't he? "Goodness. That sounds....busy," Betsy said. Her smile widened. "So do you like it here?"
"Yes," Ororo said with a nod, and not an instant's hesitation. She would not still be here, if she didn't. "What Professor Xavier is doing here, it's a good thing. We are all making it a good thing." She did not mean X-Force in particular, but the school in general. This shelter for mutants, and mutant children in particular.
"You sound like you traveled farther than most to be here," Betsy observed.
"The Professor came and got me from the Kilimanjaro Valley," Ororo confirmed. It was a little more distant than England.
"I fear I've never been there," Betsy said, sounding intrigued. "What was it like there?"
"Beautiful," was the first word that came to mind, after home. "Different. Less technology, less luxury, and life is... slower. People take the time."
"I've always marveled at how much less hectic things are in other parts of the world," Betsy admitted. "It seems like a much more sustainable pace."
"The pace might be slower, but it isn't easy living," Ororo replied simply.
Betsy smiled slightly, self-deprecatingly. "I would hardly suppose that my trips to most places properly approximated what it is like to live there," she admitted. Whether she had been there with her family as a child, or been there as a model, or even been there as a member of STRIKE, she could hardly claim to understand what it was like to live in any of those places.
"Have you traveled much?" Ororo asked curiously, leaning back in her chair.
Betsy nodded. "A bit. I had something of a charmed life when I was young." She could hardly be blind to quite how lucky she'd been, after all.
"Where have you been?" Ororo asked, and gave a small smile. "If not near Kilimanjaro."
"England," though Betsy supposed that went without saying, "France and Germany. But also the States, Japan, Korea, Russia, the British Virgin Islands, Australia, Morocco, South Africa....I fear an exhaustive list might leave us here for quite some time. Though I fear it did not take me near Kilimanjaro."
Ororo's smile widened as the list went on and on, only for her expression to turn thoughtful as she asked, "And traveling around this much, it is a charmed life for you?" She did not think that it would be, for herself.
Betsy shrugged a little. "I suppose. I had my family, and then I had adventure," she mused.
"Adventure?" Ororo echoed.
Betsy chuckled, her voice husky and a tad wistful. "I was a model," she explained.
"For fashion?" That was not an area Ororo had ever thought very much about, but she would not have assumed that it was adventurous. Clearly, she had to learn more about it.
"For fashion," Betsy said, nodding. "I was...taller back then."
Not that she was short now, by any means. Kwannon had been tall herself, but the fashion model industry always had set unrealistic standards. For weight. For height. Nobody wanted a woman to wear their clothes, they wanted a clothes hanger with slightly more personality and some legs. And this was it, then, the die was cast. People could now find out who she was, who she had been. But that had been inevitable. Warren knew. She used her proper name. This way she could get out in front of it.
Ororo tilted her head to the side, her expression openly questioning.
Betsy pulled out her phone, googled herself, and then handed it over to Ororo. The picture was of a statuesque blond, walking the runway with her bright blue eyes narrowed in challenge against someone unseen.
Ororo took the phone, and frowned in confusion at the pictures of a very white, very blond girl. She did not understand until she looked at the search keywords. She assumed that Braddock was Betsy's surname. "How?" she asked, as she handed the phone back.
"As I said, I am a telepath." It was an oddly cryptic answer, given how forthcoming she'd generally been.
"So you're - making me see you like this?" Ororo asked, none of her confusion clearing. What was the point?
Betsy shook her head. "I moved my mind to a new body."
Ororo was clearly dumbfounded for a few seconds. "For good?" It didn't sound like what Duo or TJ did.
"For good." Unless, Betsy supposed, she was forced by circumstance to do it again. But even then, she wasn't sure she could. Kwannon had been gone by the time Betsy had jumped. If she'd had to overcome someone's will...well, she did not need to think on it just now.
"What happened to..." Ororo was frowning, having some difficulty wrapping her mind around this. "Her? Her mind?"
At that, Betsy shook her head slightly. "She was already gone."
"And - your body?" Ororo would not have been asking so many questions if she hadn't been so shocked by the news.
Betsy pulled back out her mobile. Another quick google search revealed an article on the Kidnapping and death of one Elisabeth Braddock, of the Braddock family, found dead in the attic of a youth hostel long after she had been reported missing. She handed Ororo the phone again. "Also gone."
Ororo began to read, but stopped quickly enough, looking up at Betsy instead. "I'm sorry this happened to you."
Betsy smiled just a touch wistfully and shrugged. "It could have bee worse. I was lucky, considering."
Ororo held Betsy's phone back to her, not at all desirous to read the details of something so traumatic as described by the media. "You were," she confirmed, and gave the other girl a small smile. "But it must have been horrible, still."
Betsy slipped the phone back into the pocket of her jeans, despite the designers' best efforts to make the pockets too small to function. "That which does not kill us makes us stronger, they say. Besides, it's been something of a lark confusing old acquaintances."
"I can only imagine," Ororo replied, although she still looked troubled.
"Do I frighten you?" Betsy asked with an arched eyebrow. Despite the facial expression, her stance was non-combative, her voice even and calm.
Ororo opened her mouth to answer, paused, then smiled slightly and shook her head. "No." Now she was aware that she should feel scared. But the thing was, she did not think that Professor Xavier would have let Betsy in if she was a danger to the students. Ororo trusted him with this. Besides, look at who she had for a roommate, and best friend. "But it is a lot for anyone to live through. Or die through. Both."
Betsy's smile was genuine. "You are very kind." And brave, trusting, or both.
"I am what I am," Ororo replied with a small smile. Its occupants vacated the Danger Room below, but there was another booking straight after them. It was in more and more demand, the more students there were. Ororo looked away from the Room, and back at Betsy. A beat later, she turned back to the screen and closed the stats she had been looking at. "Well, I'm going out for a walk. Would you like to join me?"
"If you like, then I would love to," Betsy said, still smiling. "Though I would, of course, understand if you've places to be."
"I'm going out for a walk," Ororo repeated with a small smile. It was up to Betsy whether she joined her or not. "Have you been around the grounds much?"
"Only briefly." Betsy turned to get the door, holding it open for the other girl.
"Been to the hedge maze yet?" Ororo offered as she walked out.
Betsy shook her head 'no.' "I fear my self-guided tour may have missed the finer points of the school," she admitted, self-deprecating amusement in her voice.
"Good thing we met, then," Ororo answered, angling a grin at the other woman.
Betsy grinned right back. "Certainly. I will have to avail myself of your wisdom, I should think."
Ororo headed for the stairs, forever avoiding the elevator. "Let's start with that maze."
Ororo was reviewing some of the stats on her last Danger Room sessions, sitting at the commands and going over the data displayed on a screen. She was mechanically drumming her fingers on the desk, and ignoring what was going on inside the Room; it was none of her business, really.
Betsy let herself into the control room. She'd been told of a 'Danger Room' and curiosity had won the day sooner rather than later. Someone was in the room itself, so she had not even tried that, but the door to the control had swung open easily and she opened it to find another teenager wth shocking white hair. "Good afternoon."
Ororo looked over curiously as the door opened, then smiled at the new face. "Hi. You're - one of our English rescues?" Her accent clearly set her apart from the native English speakers, still.
"Indeed." Betsy smiled back, and stepped in a bit closer to see what the other girl was working on. "I'm Betsy. It's a pleasure to meet you...?"
"Ororo," the Black mutant supplied. She didn't think to hide what she had been looking at; her stats were no secret, for all that the charts would probably look a little obscure to someone who wasn't familiar with the Danger Room. "How are you settling in? How's the jet lag?" She had experienced it herself, but it hadn't been that bad - she'd been able to reset her clock fairly quickly.
"Ororo," Betsy repeated, committing it to memory even as she began reaching out psychically. "And it's not been as hellish as it might have been. I was keeping odd hours before I came here, which undoubtedly helped."
"Night owl?" Ororo asked curiously.
"Just a very strange week," that, from her tone, could have meant anything from the real answer to too many nights out with friends. "So, Ororo, what are you up to?"
As she asked, she began searching for bad intentions; one could never be too careful.
"Oh." Her gaze turned back to the screen. "Reviewing stats, seeing what I need to work on most."
Nothing nefarious, so far as Betsy could find. Just a student, and a genuinely well-intentioned one at that. "This training room is for your mutation, isn't it?" Betsy asked, leaning in closer to get a look at the tables and numbers. "What is your mutation?"
"Weather control," Ororo replied, leaning away to let Betsy have a look. She had nothing to hide, after all. "What's yours?"
Before she answered, and Ororo became more aware of what might or might not be going on in her head, Betsy carefully withdrew. "Telepathy," she replied easily. The visions she kept to herself - Xavier might think them mutation, but Betsy could not say with certainty they were not simply madness.
Ororo accepted that with a small nod. "It's not just about mutation training. It's also about combat training, in general. It's where X-Force trains."
"Ah, of course. X-Force. Are you on it?" Betsy queried.
"Yes," Ororo confirmed, expecting more questions. New students always had questions about it, and she understood them. She probably still had questions about it, and she was part of it.
"Why?" It was a genuine question. Warren Worthington had always had a white knight streak, and she suspected the rebellion involved was attractive to him too. So that she understood. But why would anyone else join the Professor's little vigilante outfit?
Ororo was amused by the broadness of that question, and did nothing to hide it. "To help people?"
"Mmm." Betsy hummed thoughtfully. "But why through those means?"
"I don't believe in turning a blind eye," Ororo replied simply. "And there's a lot I can do, with my mutation."
Betsy nodded slowly, more to signify understanding than agreement. Perhaps America simply had not formed its own version of STRIKE. Perhaps it had, and these students simply did not know about it yet. "I believe I met some of your X-Force," Betsy said.
Ororo nodded. "You did."
"So does the Professor not send the lot of you out each time? How big is this...club?" Betsy asked curiously. She'd have remembered if Ororo had been there, after all.
Ororo actually laughed at the word Betsy settled on, but did not comment. "There's many of us. Maybe 20 or so?"
Betsy actually smiled at the other girl's laughter, appreciating the levity and ease it brought to the moment. Well, well, well. Charles Xavier really had assembled quite a collection, then, hadn't he? "Goodness. That sounds....busy," Betsy said. Her smile widened. "So do you like it here?"
"Yes," Ororo said with a nod, and not an instant's hesitation. She would not still be here, if she didn't. "What Professor Xavier is doing here, it's a good thing. We are all making it a good thing." She did not mean X-Force in particular, but the school in general. This shelter for mutants, and mutant children in particular.
"You sound like you traveled farther than most to be here," Betsy observed.
"The Professor came and got me from the Kilimanjaro Valley," Ororo confirmed. It was a little more distant than England.
"I fear I've never been there," Betsy said, sounding intrigued. "What was it like there?"
"Beautiful," was the first word that came to mind, after home. "Different. Less technology, less luxury, and life is... slower. People take the time."
"I've always marveled at how much less hectic things are in other parts of the world," Betsy admitted. "It seems like a much more sustainable pace."
"The pace might be slower, but it isn't easy living," Ororo replied simply.
Betsy smiled slightly, self-deprecatingly. "I would hardly suppose that my trips to most places properly approximated what it is like to live there," she admitted. Whether she had been there with her family as a child, or been there as a model, or even been there as a member of STRIKE, she could hardly claim to understand what it was like to live in any of those places.
"Have you traveled much?" Ororo asked curiously, leaning back in her chair.
Betsy nodded. "A bit. I had something of a charmed life when I was young." She could hardly be blind to quite how lucky she'd been, after all.
"Where have you been?" Ororo asked, and gave a small smile. "If not near Kilimanjaro."
"England," though Betsy supposed that went without saying, "France and Germany. But also the States, Japan, Korea, Russia, the British Virgin Islands, Australia, Morocco, South Africa....I fear an exhaustive list might leave us here for quite some time. Though I fear it did not take me near Kilimanjaro."
Ororo's smile widened as the list went on and on, only for her expression to turn thoughtful as she asked, "And traveling around this much, it is a charmed life for you?" She did not think that it would be, for herself.
Betsy shrugged a little. "I suppose. I had my family, and then I had adventure," she mused.
"Adventure?" Ororo echoed.
Betsy chuckled, her voice husky and a tad wistful. "I was a model," she explained.
"For fashion?" That was not an area Ororo had ever thought very much about, but she would not have assumed that it was adventurous. Clearly, she had to learn more about it.
"For fashion," Betsy said, nodding. "I was...taller back then."
Not that she was short now, by any means. Kwannon had been tall herself, but the fashion model industry always had set unrealistic standards. For weight. For height. Nobody wanted a woman to wear their clothes, they wanted a clothes hanger with slightly more personality and some legs. And this was it, then, the die was cast. People could now find out who she was, who she had been. But that had been inevitable. Warren knew. She used her proper name. This way she could get out in front of it.
Ororo tilted her head to the side, her expression openly questioning.
Betsy pulled out her phone, googled herself, and then handed it over to Ororo. The picture was of a statuesque blond, walking the runway with her bright blue eyes narrowed in challenge against someone unseen.
Ororo took the phone, and frowned in confusion at the pictures of a very white, very blond girl. She did not understand until she looked at the search keywords. She assumed that Braddock was Betsy's surname. "How?" she asked, as she handed the phone back.
"As I said, I am a telepath." It was an oddly cryptic answer, given how forthcoming she'd generally been.
"So you're - making me see you like this?" Ororo asked, none of her confusion clearing. What was the point?
Betsy shook her head. "I moved my mind to a new body."
Ororo was clearly dumbfounded for a few seconds. "For good?" It didn't sound like what Duo or TJ did.
"For good." Unless, Betsy supposed, she was forced by circumstance to do it again. But even then, she wasn't sure she could. Kwannon had been gone by the time Betsy had jumped. If she'd had to overcome someone's will...well, she did not need to think on it just now.
"What happened to..." Ororo was frowning, having some difficulty wrapping her mind around this. "Her? Her mind?"
At that, Betsy shook her head slightly. "She was already gone."
"And - your body?" Ororo would not have been asking so many questions if she hadn't been so shocked by the news.
Betsy pulled back out her mobile. Another quick google search revealed an article on the Kidnapping and death of one Elisabeth Braddock, of the Braddock family, found dead in the attic of a youth hostel long after she had been reported missing. She handed Ororo the phone again. "Also gone."
Ororo began to read, but stopped quickly enough, looking up at Betsy instead. "I'm sorry this happened to you."
Betsy smiled just a touch wistfully and shrugged. "It could have bee worse. I was lucky, considering."
Ororo held Betsy's phone back to her, not at all desirous to read the details of something so traumatic as described by the media. "You were," she confirmed, and gave the other girl a small smile. "But it must have been horrible, still."
Betsy slipped the phone back into the pocket of her jeans, despite the designers' best efforts to make the pockets too small to function. "That which does not kill us makes us stronger, they say. Besides, it's been something of a lark confusing old acquaintances."
"I can only imagine," Ororo replied, although she still looked troubled.
"Do I frighten you?" Betsy asked with an arched eyebrow. Despite the facial expression, her stance was non-combative, her voice even and calm.
Ororo opened her mouth to answer, paused, then smiled slightly and shook her head. "No." Now she was aware that she should feel scared. But the thing was, she did not think that Professor Xavier would have let Betsy in if she was a danger to the students. Ororo trusted him with this. Besides, look at who she had for a roommate, and best friend. "But it is a lot for anyone to live through. Or die through. Both."
Betsy's smile was genuine. "You are very kind." And brave, trusting, or both.
"I am what I am," Ororo replied with a small smile. Its occupants vacated the Danger Room below, but there was another booking straight after them. It was in more and more demand, the more students there were. Ororo looked away from the Room, and back at Betsy. A beat later, she turned back to the screen and closed the stats she had been looking at. "Well, I'm going out for a walk. Would you like to join me?"
"If you like, then I would love to," Betsy said, still smiling. "Though I would, of course, understand if you've places to be."
"I'm going out for a walk," Ororo repeated with a small smile. It was up to Betsy whether she joined her or not. "Have you been around the grounds much?"
"Only briefly." Betsy turned to get the door, holding it open for the other girl.
"Been to the hedge maze yet?" Ororo offered as she walked out.
Betsy shook her head 'no.' "I fear my self-guided tour may have missed the finer points of the school," she admitted, self-deprecating amusement in her voice.
"Good thing we met, then," Ororo answered, angling a grin at the other woman.
Betsy grinned right back. "Certainly. I will have to avail myself of your wisdom, I should think."
Ororo headed for the stairs, forever avoiding the elevator. "Let's start with that maze."
