Template:Featured Articles/12-2020

Moment of Awesome - Betsy Braddock/Psylocke: Training on the Astral Plane with Jean Grey and Quentin Quire, Betsy displays some strange traits. Betsy flickered again, but this time instead of moving she seemed to blur at the edges, as if another shape dressed in black was superimposed on her astral self. She grabbed at Jean’s outstretched hand but rather than let the older telepath pull her up she attempted to yank her to the ground and roll herself on top of her. There was something---no---someone there that shouldn't have been. Jean furrowed her brow at the aberration. The darkness made her narrow her eyes. Shadow King. Came the instinctive reply, laced with a quickened breath. So when the form reached for her, Jean immediately jumped back as chains erupted from the floor a moment later, trying to snag Betsy. "Very funny, slipping out the rug from under me. So to speak." Though he had fallen through the trap, Quentin caught himself and waited for the right moment to strike back. So here he was, standing atop a column of sewage spouting from the sewer like a geyser, though his armor remained pristine. He snapped his fingers and mimicked Jean's trick, though this time, a dozen manholes appeared around her, like the face of a clock, and exploded, the sewage water rocketing into the sky before gravity sent the polluted torrent back to the earth. Jean was focused on a different matter, and when Quentin made his move, she responded quickly, a barrier of glass springing up around them. "Quentin, stop," she said urgently, then added mentally to him only. ~There's something else here with us.~ Everything stopped; in the blink of an eye, the manholes and sewage were gone, and Quentin was back to the clothes we was wearing on the material world, though they glittered as he reinforced them with his powers. He did not need any special armor. After all, Quentin's best armor was his knowledge of himself as a person, that he was no one else's. That combined with an inflated sense of his own self-importance. ~Where's Braddock? Does it have her?~ Jean fell silent a moment, taking a glance around. ~Betsy's still here. Not sure yet what I'm sensing with us. But there's something. Something...dark.~ The world around them shifted to plain nothingness. Less to concentrate on. Now that she had moved from instinct she had come to realize this wasn't who she thought it was. "Betsy? Are you okay? What just happened?" she said gently. Betsy had evaded the chains with uncharacteristic dexterity but seemed confused at Jean’s questioning. “What do you mean? I’m fine. You dodged my attack and countered, then Quentin came back in with the water. That was an interesting trick with the chains though, and the manhole covers too, I wouldn’t have thought of using the environment like that,” she nodded towards Quentin. “Both of you obviously have more experience with this than I do. With the misdirection as well, getting the opponent to doubt their allies, right?” Quentin turned and glared at Jean. ~There's nothing wrong with her. Why the fuck are you going on terrifying me like that? Goddamn, woman.~ He turned back to Betsy, still eyeing her warily, though that was not much different than how he normally looked at people, anyway. "It's easy. This whole world exists as a plaything for telepaths. Just think about it and you can make it." Jean was silent a moment or two. She didn't really reply to Quentin, just met his eyes unflinchingly before looking back to Betsy with a light smile. "Yes, that's true. I'm sorry...I must have been imagining things. Let's try that again, now that you've seen a little bit of how it's done," she said.