It had been a rather bad week for Trace Tanner. First, the incident at the college. Then, he was on the run from SUPER. Then, he’d been confronted by Sir-stalks-alot. And then there was the interdimensional out of body experience where he’d very nearly lost every fiber of his being to nothing-ness. That was a real bummer.

Now, most of that didn’t seem like it was that big of a concern. He currently was floating in darkness, blissfully unaware of everything around him. Except for the wind in his hair. And the sound of cars. Trace opened his eyes, realizing that he was in mid-air. And there was a balcony. And empty space below him. Suddenly, Trace remembered some variety of explosion and connected all of the dots. He was going to die after all.

Trace clipped the roof of the building with a resounding ‘thud’ and a snap that was likely a bone breaking. Screaming in pain, he began to slide down. He hit the balcony with a resounding thud and was unable to stop himself from rolling against the rail. Groggily, he looked around. Sensible decoration. Large apartment. Really high up.

He’d probably just landed on a senator’s porch. They’d probably turn him over to SUPER. He’d end up in a little cell somewhere. It would all end up being for nothing.

Hopefully, he’d done enough to protect everyone he cared about. Hopefully, no one knew where he’d gone. Hopefully, he hadn’t brought about the destruction of the world with the scuffle and the resulting thing he’d caused.

Hopefully, he wouldn’t bleed to death on some rich person’s porch. Trace tried to reach back to see what was going on with his shoulder and, for starters, there was something broken in there. He managed to get his fingers back and foun- THERE WAS A KNIFE IN HIS BACK. Accidentally nudging the knife caused a flare of white hot pain through his body and Trace blacked out.

It was Saturday, and Saturdays were for sleeping in. This was a fact that had been established early on in the Shinbo's relationship. Both Kealey and Shin had busy work lives and as time went on, their weekends had become more and more sacred. Sometimes things interfered, like fashion shows or other weekend activities, but not this weekend.

This weekend found the young couple sitting propped up on pillows, browsing on tablets and generally just wasting time. It was lovely.

It was lovely right up until a scream rent the air, followed by a loud thump. Looking up from her tablet, Kealey cast out with her powers. There was someone there...close by, probably on the balcony. They felt...persecuted, they were hurt and confused....and scared. Then there was nothing...

"Shin....I think someone might have just died on our balcony...." she said, already working to get her legs untangled from the bedclothes.

Ultimately, the sounds effects for the scene registered in Shin's mind as a comical 'ahhhhhh!' Followed by a meaty Thunk. Maybe a little squealing sliding sound of fingers scraping down the glass after that? Whether that was the actual registry of sound effects, or ones he'd added post-event, didn't matter. That was how he saw the whole scene, in the moment, and how he'd recall it later on. Shin swept his word search game aside, and set his tablet aside.

"Shin... I think someone might have just died on our balcony..." Kealey said, working her way out of bed.

"Of course they did," Shin's voice was cavalier. He'd been atop the sheets, since he'd been warm. Even with an overhead fan turning round. That made escaping the bed quite simple. He slid off the bed, into red and brown plaid house slippers by the nightstand, and strode towards the source of the sound. Their apartment balcony. He brushed aside the curtains, wrenched the sliding glass door and screen aside, and let the body laid out on the wraparound balcony by the door to their living room settle unwholesomely in his greenish vision grid.

His mind ran through details, detached, remnants of the old cop analytical mind taking charge. There was a man, probably thirty-something, around 6' tall, with brown hair, Caucasian features, and a knife in his back. He was either dead, or unconscious, on their balcony, which was very high in the air. How he'd gotten there was anyone's guess.

Shin knelt by the man's side, and took a pulse. There was one. "Super..." Shin muttered. He'd want to call this in. The Asian looked over his shoulder, and spoke calmly to Kealey. "He's still alive. Should I call the cops?"

Consciousness returned to Trace in a trickle. He felt his eyes slowly open, but his mind was fairly cloudy. Looking up a bit, Trace saw a blonde and an Asian looking at him. That wasn't something you woke up to every day.

In his hazy state, Trace thought he might have heard someone say the word cops. "No... cops... please... SUPER... Bad..Ughh." he managed to get out, feeling incredibly exhausted. And incredibly light. From his training, Trace knew that wasn't a good sign.

Exsanguination had multiple stages. Early symptoms included feelings of lightheaded-ness, dizziness, fati-

An overwhelming sense of calmness swept over Trace. His thoughts started to drift back to his childhood. It was a decent life, it was pretty good. City living-

Euphoria was also a symptom. Trace struggled to keep himself conscious. It was getting much harder. A surge of adrenaline forced Trace back. "Help." he murmured, feeling weak.

The emotions returned, albeit slowly, and Kealey breathed a small sigh of relief. It would have been terribly bizarre if the man had simply fallen from the sky and died on their balcony with no explanation whatsoever. The man was in a bad way though, and Kealey's brow furrowed as he spoke.

Cops...were bad? Briefly, the small blonde wondered if they were in the company of some kind of criminal. It didn't feel that way though, it really didn't. The stain of criminal acts was difficult to scrub clean from a soul, and Kealey could usually tell if she was dealing with a particularly bad character. That didn't seem the case though.

"I think he needs medical attention more quickly than that..." Kealey said, glancing up at Shin as she knelt down next to the bleeding man. "we should take him to Doc Prof." The Doc was the best at what he did, after all, and questions could always be asked after the life-threatening injuries had been taken care of.

There was quite a lot of blood. Time was obviously becoming of the essence, and Kealey barely caught herself before asking Shin to fly them there to avoid traffic and general New York drama. Shin's powers still weren't behaving properly, even after all this time, it would have been wrong of her to pressure him in this kind of situation...he'd only feel guilty after the fact when it didn't work out.

"I'm curious why he thinks the cops are bad though...and how he got so high up." she said instead, more curious than ever about what had brought this man to their balcony.

The Asian's brow furrowed. No cops? Why would that be super bad? Of course, the man was bleeding, which was super bad, but still. If they called the cops, they'd call ambulances too, and he had to think that bleeding out from a knife wound would be bad enough to merit a little leeway. Unless this man was on the run from the law. Why would he have flown to them? Maybe it had been the first high-rise apartment he saw? Dying alone is pretty super bad. Bad enough to involve strangers. Although the way he'd said super... was strange. He chalked it up to a dying man's weird emphasis, after he flew away from danger, straight onto someone's balcony. Flying.

Instantly, Shin was a little sore over the fact he couldn't fly any more. He quashed it. It was stupid, and childish to be jealous of an injured potential criminal who needed their help, and it was beneath him. But still. He was mad this stupid mental block had persisted all these years. Beyond those two brief flashes of feeling, Shin was worried... and he was concerned. Worried he wouldn't be able to help the man by getting him medical attention on time, and concerned by this man's insistence on 'no cops'. Whatever his problem was, he wasn't a threat to them in his present state. He NEEDED help. That took priority over anything else. Shin was an X-man. Helping people was his job.

Helping people was his JOB, and he couldn't even fly. Inside his mind, he imagined that classic triangle flying platform of old. Kealey was right, the man was in a bad way and their friend, the healer, could help. "Yeah," he agreed. If only he could fly....

His wife's comment on how the man had arrived on their balcony, and her worries about his upstanding law-abiding status, were met with a complete lack of hesitation. "He flew, obviously... like I used to." There was no disguising the hint of bitterness in his voice. She'd tried to avoid mentioning the elephant in the room, he was sure, but he hadn't. It galled him how powerless he currently was. It had bothered him for a while.

He imagined that triangle, again, and didn't stop as he stood over the man. There was something strange about the air around the man but Shin couldn't place it. His brow was furrowed in concentration. Something strange... about his fashion, maybe, or his aura. Or the situation. Hell. It didn't matter. If they didn't do something, and fast, he'd be a man out of time.

Dammit. If they removed the knife, he'd bleed out. If they carried him downstairs, he'd bleed out. Dealing with New York traffic, he'd bleed out, and if they didn't help, and now--

It all came to a head. The next thing Shin knew, his knuckles hurt... and there was a trickle of red down around the front of his fist. Which was firmly pressed into the hard material of the balcony. Which he had thrust his fist into, melodramatically. A foot or so from Trace's head. "Dammit." Shin muttered. He felt like an ass.

The Asian definitely didn't notice the forest green triangle floating in the air a few feet away. The one he had summoned when he finally shattered his mental block. Big enough to carry three people, easily. Didn't notice it at all.

OOC - Skipping Trace due to unconsciousness with his permission.

The injured man was fuzzy again, drifting on a fine line between consciousness and unconsciousness. It was disorienting to the blonde and she frowned slightly as Shin pointed out that it was obvious that the man had flown in...like Shin used to be able to do.

Kealey almost rolled her eyes. They'd been over this time and again, mental blocks weren't the type of thing that could be broken by force. They had to be worked through methodically. They'd been trying things, and eventually the things would work...even if it would be great to have access to a shard platform right this moment. They'd simply have to make due with what they had.

A dull thud and a metallic thud drew Kealey's attention and she scowled slightly at her husband and his wounded hand. He was frustrated and a bit sheepish, she just about told him off...and then she saw the platform. It was forest green and looked just about big enough to fit three people.

Blue eyes widening, Kealey gasped softly, "Shin..." she breathed softly, as if afraid that speaking too loudly would shatter the construct.

"Let's get him up there and get to the Mansion." Kealey said, a wide grin spreading across her features. Now they really had a chance to save this guy and find out what was going on.

Up where?

Shin glanced at her. And then, he followed the direction she was staring, and saw that platform. Huh. He hadn't summoned it. But then, maybe he had. There would be plenty of time to figure out HOW it had happened, and what had happened later.

"Help me lift him. Carefully." Together, the two of them managed to get the unconscious man up onto the triangular platform. Usually, he would have sculpted tiny shards up around their feet, like plating that kept them in place. He tried imagining that, but ran into the same old problem. That was fine. He directed Kealey to keep the man steady, and watch her own footing. Whatever had let him summon the platform, he still wasn't up to his usual standard, and couldn't build them steadying footholds. He'd just have to fly carefully.

Once they were steady, and ready, he took off. It had been years since he'd flown like this, but it came back to him rapidly. What is it they say about riding a bicycle? You never fully forget? He flew fast, though not at his fastest. Airborne, they dodged a metric ton of New York traffic. It took them across the city, and to the mansion rapidly. Before they knew it, they were touching down on the lawn outside the mansion.

A quick phone call later, Doc Prof was on the lawn helping Shin lift the unconscious man up onto a board, so they could move him. The old man reached down, gently extricated the knife from the man's back, then laid hands on him. There was a yellow glow around his palm as healing energy channeled into the unconscious man. Doc Prof's eyes widened as he took in the memory of the wound's infliction. And suddenly, he had a lot of questions floating around in his head.

"He'll be stable for now, but his energy is low. We'll want to get him an IV drip, and maybe some blood. He lost a lot of it. Help me get him inside." Doc Prof said.

Together, they brought the man into the mansion, straight to Doc Prof's infirmary. They had healed him in time.

At some point during his unconsciousness, Trace transitioned from a blood loss coma into just plain sleeping. He hadn’t had much time to sleep recently because he’d been running from his former organization. His body needed rest. It was a simple fact of nature. His mind also apparently needed rest. And that meant that it needed to piece through all of the things that he’d experienced in recent history. And that meant dreams. Well, dreams was a friendly connotation. These were less dreams and closer on the border to nightmares.

Trace’s dreams carried him down some dark corridors. Caught by SUPER. Tortured. Tied to a chair in a dark room, an old style floodlight the only source of light in the room. Voices, just beyond the edge of the light, past the boundary where Trace’s sight would let him capture details, just outside the range where his ears could catch sounds.

Other dreams centered on more real events. But with different endings. Failing to deal with the goatman. The goatman turning out to be Trace’s middle school gym teacher (it was considerably more terrifying that what actually happened). The dead, seizing him and dragging him to a location more horrible than he could have ever dreamed up in his head. Well, maybe not, since this was all happening in his head. Maybe his head was a more messed up place than he’d imagined.

Suddenly, something was very, very different. There was no more pain. Trace’s back didn’t hurt any more. A thought occurred to Trace. Maybe he had died. Would he know? What would that be like? He had never really thought about it before. People always mentioned seeing some kind of light and feeling at peace. But Trace wasn’t really at peace. And he wasn’t seeing any kind of bright light. He still felt a connection deep inside himself, a connection to the shared strife of living. No, Trace wasn’t dead. Death probably wouldn’t be accompanied by… bed sheets?

Before opening his eyes, Trace felt around with his fingers a little, trying not to move too noticeably. He had no idea where he was, no idea what had happened in the past few hours. He remembered hitting a roof. He remembered falling onto a balcony. He remembered a blonde and a man of some sort of Asian descent. Or was that all part of the dreams?

Slowly, Trace opened his eyes, looking around. He was in an infirmary of some sort. He was hooked up to a couple of monitors and an IV drip. It looked like a bag of Ringer’s Lactate. So he was in a medical facility with some understanding of how to treat blood loss. That was fortunate. They’d probably performed a transfusion then begun countering the effects of acidosis. Trace had been right on the edge of death. He was fortunate that he’d found someone willing to get him to help.

Almost on queue, Trace heard voices outside in the hallway. Before he even knew what he was doing, his training kicked in and he slumped back against the pillow, feigning unconsciousness. He tried to relax his muscles a little. Unconscious people were rarely entirely dead weight and after many of the treatments he’d been given, he’d hardly be in a near-dead state. Trace was completely unarmed, but that really didn’t make him any less dangerous. He waited as the voices drew closer. This really had been a bad week.

The circumstances of the man's injuries were...interesting to say the least. Kealey stood in the hallway with her arms crossed, listening to what Doc Prof had to say. There had been a fight of seemingly epic proportions, a knife had been involved, and something big had happened. It probably explained all of the sirens that had been blaring as they'd made their way to the Mansion and the all call that had gone out over the X-communicators. Technically, Kealey had "retired" from active duty when her fashion design business had taken off, but she still kept tabs on things and helped out when things got really hairy. She was meeting with Sam soon to head to the scene of whatever most recent tragedy had struck the city..and it seemed like this man was knee deep in whatever had happened.

Glimmers of consciousness flitted through the walls that separated her, Shin, and the Doc from the man they'd brought to the Mansion. Kealey had questions.

Doc pointed out that the man was probably going to be tired, despite the fact that he was healed. That was okay, Kealey didn't plan to make him do any strenuous exercises. Stepping away for a moment, the blonde called Sam to let him know she was chasing down a lead and would then meet him to head to the scene and then opened the door. Shin would follow when he was ready.

The man didn't look all that sick anymore. The sickly yellow pall that had tinted his skin had faded back to a more neutral skin tone and he was breathing much more easily than when they'd arrived.

"I know you're not awake." Kealey said softly, approaching the prone man but staying out of arm's reach. "My husband and I brought you to The Mansion, sister school to Xavier's School for the Gifted and our Doctor healed your wounds. My name is Kealey and my husband is Tetsuya, I'd like to ask you what happened, if that's alright." She left out the fact that she was basically a human lie detector. Conversations were much more interesting this way.

In retrospect, he'd wondered if he should have tried some first aid for the man. Removed the knife, applied pressure. But Doc Prof had said the knife had been in a vital area, close to veins and nerves , and if he'd recklessly shifted it, the man might not have survived. That had given Shin a bit of peace of mind coming off the endorphins from a stressful situation. He'd made the intelligent call. Still, he felt like he should have done something beyond what he'd done. He was trying to shake that feeling. Self doubt helps no one.

Nobody had died thankfully, but only because they'd gotten lucky and his power had deigned to grace them with its presence. When the platform had been dismissed, he hadn't been able to bring it back. He didn't know what was up with that. That question sat in the back of his mind while they dealt with more important things.

He'd heard the sirens, gotten the communicator call as they'd flown. He hadn't actually been able to answer it while traveling at 65 miles per hour through the air... you think texting while driving is bad. Try talkin on the phone while psychically controlling a moving platform, a couple hundred feet up. He'd been pushing it with his weight limit, too. He had a hangover of a headache coming on.

From Doc Prof's Description of the man's injuries, and the events surrounding them, Shin was left with more questions than answers. It sounded like the man had been in one hell of a situation, and come out alive.

When Kealey stepped aside to make a call, shin followed suit. Then, he rejoined her as they went to talk to their friend.

He looked like he was unconscious. Kealey wasn't buying it. She asked him what had happened, and Shin, well, Shin let his wife do the questioning for the moment and took the back seat. He stood in the background quietly, careful not to spook a man scared enough to play possum. He'd chime in when it was appropriate.

Trace pushed a time bubble into place around him and the blonde lady that was questioning him. He was looking for a bit of privacy and, from statistics and training, he figured the woman might be the easier of the people in the room to deal with. It wasn't pure sexism, just practical sexism. That wasn't as bad, right?

The bubble snapped into place as she was finishing her sentence. She knew he was awake and knew that she had him at a major, major disadvantage. If Trace was right and the interaction that had happened earlier ended the way he thought it had, he was somewhere else entirely.

String theory tells humanity that, based on every possible action, their exists a universe where the other possible outcomes took place. If that was true, it meant that time was not concurrent and linear. It was more like a the fibers on those rally big, comfy scarves. The threads, which were time, ran parallel and across each other. The tiny, tiny gaps between the threads were, well, space.

Putting your finger on one of these threads, it could be traced end to end on the comfy scarf. You could follow it from beginning to end. Straight-ish line, start to finish. But, if you folded that scarf and pushed down, two separate threads could be pushed together, making them indistinguishable.

Stalker brought the space manipulation. Trace brought the time. Trace was the the threads, Stalker was the finger. They'd pushed so hard that there was a hole. Holes let in all kinds of things.

So as close as Trace could figure, he was likely either in custody in his own universe, or, he was somewhere else entirely. The danger was very real.

"Alright Kealey, what would you like to know?" Trace asked, his voice calm and firm. He was trying to portray that he was in control of the situation, even though he was entirely out of his element. "Where did you say we were again?" he asked.

This man's emotions were...complicated. Complicated, but not necessarily guilty. The thoughts from the apartment came back to her again, and the blonde couldn't help but think that there was more here than met the eye.

At least they were done with the pretense of unconsciousness. The man spoke, and Kealey listened, oblivious to the workings of his mutation around them as they spoke.

The questions the man asked were more difficult than they seemed on the surface. Who didn't know what the Mansion was? Brows drawing closer together, Kealey considered things for a moment before answering.

"You're at The Mansion. It's a school and...resource of sorts for Mutants." It was at best an open secret that the X-Men were based at the Mansion too, but it wasn't the sort of thing Kealey was simply going to blurt out.

"And I think I'd like to know how you came to be on my balcony on a Saturday morning with a knife in your back. It's not the sort of thing we're used to."

(OOC: we had agreed, nearly a month ago today, to skip shin for a post or two for a conversation)

A school? For mutants? How had SUPER not shut them down long ago? A mutant school would be just the sort of thing that would make them quiver in their jackboots. This was, possibly, the worst place Trace could have ended up. Or what if it was a trick? That could be a very SUPER thing to do.

The little voice in the back of Trace's head that always entertained the more fantastical aspects of life stirred and complicated matters even more. Or you're in another universe where the SUPER goons don't exist... it said, tantalizingly. A day ago, he would have thought that was not even a remote possibility. Alternate realities and interdimensonal travel were things that happened in books, not reality. But then again, thanks to Sir stalks-a lot, there was potentially a very large hole in reality.

Thoughts move very quickly, so a mere instant of silence, a brief pause had occurred while Trace had wrestled with universe level concepts. Look at how far he'd come in only a day!

"The answer to that question is both simple and infinitely complex. For starters, I was stabbed. That explains the knife. As for the balcony, I was stabbed. That tends to do funny things to your consciousness." he stated, dryly. He needed more information before he could figure out if he was able to trust the woman. He needed some kind of... proof of his situation. Something concrete. Something to tell him whether or not he'd been captured.

"Did you hear about the Lunar Eclipse food festival?" he asked, seemingly at random. Trace was, of course, looking for a lie. If she knew anything, he'd be able to tell. He'd bet his life on it.

There was a heady amount of suspicion in the emotions of the man sitting in the infirmary. Kealey supposed it was all to be expected, but it was still a lot to try and sort through at the moment. Nearly masked by the suspicion was confusion and...something else. Thoughts moved quickly though, and so did some conversations.

Asked about the lunar festival, the blonde nodded her head, "I'd heard about festivities." she said simply. "I don't do well in crowds though, so I can't say I've paid much attention." Large crowds and empaths didn't mix very well, and Kealey had learned over the years that even though she was pretty good with her powers, it was just better to avoid some situations all together.

All in all, they weren't getting anywhere right now, and the blond sighed. "If we're going to help you, you're going to have to trust me just a little bit. Generally people in your condition get taken to the hospital and there are police reports and things like that. We assumed you're a mutant because how else would you end up on our balcony like that? You're at the Mansion, that's as safe a place as exists in New York city for mutants. Are you in trouble?"