Magik Meltdown
Author's note: Onto the main story.
HC = Hellfire Club.
Part 1: Late Night Assessments
Emma was working late in her office, which also served as a study and a living room. There was also an attached bedroom for when she decided to spend the night (or if Sebastian Shaw was in the mood, the man could be a satyr at times). Emma had just finished updating the dossier profiles of the New Mutants. The files were electronic and only accessible by the HC inner circle (very strong encryption, AES 1024). However, Emma liked keeping her secrets so Emma's attached notes was additionally encrypted via a mental algorithm. The decrypted text would be gibberish to anyone who did not have the psychic algorithm.
Dossier: Sam Guthrie (Cannonball)
Character: Loyal to his friends and family. Good character. Basic salt of the earth mid west individual. Meat and potatoes kind of person. Smart but not brilliant. Plodder more than a gifted student. Get it done kind of a person.
Treatment Assessment: Isolation of the traumatic memories appears successfully. More difficult then some due to his religious beliefs being harmed by the concept of this Beyonder individual.
Potential: Mid level leader at best. Good squad captain potential but unlikely ever to rise high in the HC ranks. His abilities make him a good heavy hitter on the power scale. I wonder if any of his siblings are potential mutants as well?
Recommended assimilation technique: Family. Guthrie is loyal to a fault. Do good by him and his and the battle is almost won. Recommend that the academic potential of his siblings be assessed and possibly grant some scholarships (although likely local private schools will be needed to avoid breaking up the family for now). Investigate the farm and see if we can arrange some mineral rights lease deal to bring a bit of prosperity to his mother without being obvious about out.
Dossier: Xi'an Coy Manh (Karma)
Character: Protective of her remaining family (who are missing) and loyal to those she believes are worthy of her loyalty. Good character but quite capably of harshness and has a ruthlessness she hides most of the time. Major repressed lesbian tendencies. Smart, good student. Comfortable with the exercise of power.
Treatment Assessment: Isolation of the traumatic memories appears successfully. Easiest of the group due to prior traumas. I was able to blur the traumas together, allowing her prior recovery behaviors to reassert.
Potential: Mid level leader, possibly higher. Has leader ship potential and her power makes her an excellent assertion team member due to her ability to control others. Potential long term HC inner member due to her power set.
Recommended assimilation technique: Two fold; find her siblings and a provide a stable accepting environment.
Dossier: Rahne Sinclair (Wolfsbane)
Character: Fanatically loyal to her friends and family. Very judgmental of others. Strict religious bigoted upbringing has filled her with low self esteem and loathing for her mutant wolf form abilities. This is complicated by her innate enjoyment of her wolf form. Deep fear of Illyana, I suspect that this is partially an externalization of her own self hatred. Average student but loves to write escapism fiction.
Treatment Assessment: Isolation of the traumatic memories appears successfully. Interestingly it was less difficult then Guthrieeven thought she has more extreme religious beliefs. Easier to make it all just the work of the devil.
Potential: Squad member or body guard. Her abilities and senses would make a most excellent personal guard.
Recommended assimilation technique: Friends and her innate loneliness. Be nice. Never the fist always the open hand. Be good to her. Interesting potential with her foster mother; it would be nice to bring that research facility under HC sway. Investigate the use of triple blind third party funding grants.
Dossier: Amara Juliana Olivians Aquilla (Magma)
Character: Reserved, loyal to her friends and family. Whole Roman duty and honor thing. Aristocratic by nature and nurture. Smart.
Treatment Assessment: Isolation of the traumatic memories appears successfully. Basic memory blur and distort technique to mitigate the trauma.
Potential: Very heavy hitter. HC potential and I dare say long term inner HC circle potential. Possible queen grade.
Recommended assimilation technique: Honor and obligation. Plus the chance to confront/kill the current black queen. Play upon duty and revenge. She should be the easiest to sway to our cause.
Dossier: Douglas Ramsey (Cypher)
Character: Outgoing, very smart. Easily influenced by a pair of breasts (quintessential horny young man). Brilliant student.
Treatment Assessment: Isolation of the traumatic memories appears successfully. Again the basic memory blur and distort technique to mitigate the trauma.
Potential: His ability to process languages is underappreciated. There are many forms of communication, not to mention the code breaking abilities (Ha, take that NSA). Not field agent caliber.
Recommended assimilation technique: Challenging academic environment, chances to excel, appreciative young ladies (needs a girl friend).
Dossier: Illyana Rasputin (Magik)
Character: Mostly unknown. Secretive, possible obsessive traits, quite ruthless. Mostly unknown as I have not been able to properly read her mind. Loyal to her friends. Deep depths of evil (or so the mind scans of the others inform me).
Treatment Assessment: Unknown, she was more active then the others when they came here and has continued to show more interaction over time. However, there is a hollowness, an emptiness that seems to linger about her; and I think it's growing.
Potential: HC inner circle queen. Her ruthlessness and her power make her an obvious candidate. Teleportation, magic, and mental shields that are staggering. Also, having her as a protégée would be sublime. She would be the perfect counter to the current Black Queen for Sebastian and I. Moreover, this whole ruler of a limbo dimension gives us the potential to destroy the Black Queen. Plus she's a blond and the world is meant to be ruled by blonds (snicker).
Recommended assimilation technique: Unknown. She has no apparent interest in power, wealth, sex (men or woman). Possible manipulation of family and friends?
Additional Notes: Unconscious surface emotions and reactions are telling. Her time in limbo at the hands of her captor gives me concern. I'm picking up hints of prolonged physical, emotional, and mental abuse from her time in limbo; and I fear sexual abuse as well.
Emma stared at the last line in Illyana's file. How to reach the girl? Of all the New Mutants she was the one that was truly a diamond in the rough. So much potential.
Emma got up from her desk and went over to the mini bar to pour herself a generous dollop of Armagnac. As she savored the drink one of the alarms on the office wall went off showing that there was some kind of commotion going on in the Hellions dorm quarter. Emma started telepathically eavesdropping (using the eyes and ears of the folks involved) while she walked over to the fireplace's and sat down on one of the white leather couches (Italian leather, oh so comfy).
Emma monitored the events (as shown in pages 15-17 in Issue #39). Illyana's demonic appearance was of high concern to the other students (they were quite freaked out in fact). She had silvery horns with small silver skulls woven into her hair. Red high heel boots, silver armor covering the upper half of her body, long full arm white silk gloves, and only a long white loin cloth to hide her unmentionables; and a long red barbed devil tail that was flicking around like a cat's tail. "The tail is a new twist, looks like Kurt's" Emma thought. Before only Illyana's garb and ornamentation had been changing, now her physical form was shifting was well.
"Hiya Mannie" Illyana purred as she sashayed up to Manuel (code name Empath), who had a look of stark terror on his face. Illyana draped her arms over Manuel's shoulders and did a rather impressive bump and grind. As Illyana stared into his eyes Manuel felt the tip of her tail was caressing his cheek. "Still want to play? I'm game if you are" Illyana asked. Manuel only just managed to keep control of his bladder. He untangled himself from her and quickly backed out of the room.
"This is not going to end well" Emma thought "Unless I can reach her. Even worse, the rest of the team is being affected which might undo everything I'm attempting to achieve. Although Empath really did deserved that". Emma had wanted Tarot to be Illyana's roommate but Tarot had gone into hysterics at the suggestion; something about the cards predicting her death. "Damn", Emma muttered after a few minutes thought, then got up and went back to her desk to update Illyana's file.
Addendum, personal note: I fear that I have miscalculated. Additional magical talent would be a fine addition to the Academies arsenal of talent for the HC, and as a counter to the new and most unwelcome black queen; however Illyana is showing ever more signs of instability. Worse, my attempts to mitigate the death trauma still has no affect upon Illyana as her mind shield is impregnable (how does she do that?) and she refuses to lower it, that is when she bothers to be here.
She spends far too much time in this Limbo dimension and the affects upon her are not positive. She claims to be avoiding nightmares by not dreaming; but sleep deprivation is not therapy. The ability to avoid sleep is of some concern; however the resulting impacts upon her mental state are of more pressing concerns. I have mitigated the trauma of the other New Mutants, but had delayed attempting to make any additional mental modifications to their loyalties until I had resolved Mrs. Rasputin's issues. My reason for this is simple, Mrs. Rasputin appears to be akin to an uncontrolled unshielded nuclear reactor lacking any control rods and has a propensity to violence. I must tread lightly here, she's unstable and unpredictable. No telling what she might do if she thought her friends were in danger or were being influenced in ways she disapproved of. Her potential reactions are unknown at this time. She might just find it funny, she might just kill anyone she thought was responsible (and I fear she may have both the ability and the means to do it). In short, at this time I have no idea as to her possible reactions. Damn, the girl's perfect HC Queen material. And is a perfect counter to Selena. But what to do?
Emma went back to the bar for a refill. She picked up her dictaphone (Authors note: Yes an outdated technology) and recorded a message for her secretary "Ben, have Illyana come by the office before class". "What to do" Emma mentally grumbled as she refilled her sniffer. Emma turned around and was startled to find Illyana standing there. Her start caused her to drop her class glass.