This choice: After a little Mojovision, Jean is shown to her room-she refuses to perfom! • Go Back... How could people do... that to mutants?
That couldn't be the future--the timeline she found herself in. It had to be something different. Something terrible and awful, but something different surely. Giant robots taller than skyscrapers, stomping out cities wreathed in fire and bathed in blood. Mutant blood. The blood of her people splattered across their giant purple feet like they were nothing but bugs to be stepped on. And humans too--kidnapping, torturing, raping, and killing mutants just for the sake of being born differently. Born with an X-Gene. Hours of footage, all rolled into one and set to a laugh track.
This wasn't right.
It couldn't be right.
And Spiral laughing the entire time like some kind of inhuman monster at all the worst possible parts. How could anyone take so much pleasure in the suffering of so many people? How could anyone, mutant or not, laugh while people are burned alive by fire? Or melted by a giant robot's laser vision? How was this even a thing? Screw the giant robots, had people become so calloused that they just... didn't care?
Jean stared into the floating blue eye of the video camera that had been following her around ever since she'd been shoved into her room. It was just... there. Getting different shots of her, probably waiting for her to do something interesting. But she wasn't, and probably wouldn't be doing anything interesting for some time.
Mojo had given her a pretty nice room. Nothing like the prison cell she was expecting. A lot better than the actual prison cell she had back at the New Xavier School, and somehow even moreso than her room back at the Jean Grey School. It was supposed to be "modern", but the word had kind of lost meaning to the time-displaced teenager. Big bed, big TV, big silver fridge and those hanging square lights over the window, nice view of the city skyline. It was sleek and fancy like all the magazines in this time seemed to like. Actually, knowing how much these freaks liked Earth Culture, Mojo probably based it around the same magazine.
She was just laying there, on her bed, in her uniform. The white and green onesie that Professor Magick had conjured up for her a while back, and sadly enough the last little bit of "home" she had left. And not even her real home. Some twisted alternate future timeline where she was dead. Her bright red hair was spread out on the bed, flared as she lay motionless. Her hands folded across her stomach, trying to ignore the thick gurgling groans of hunger that rumbled deep within.
How could they expect her to just... snap back from all of that?
The little silver ball floating over her head watched her expectantly, capturing even the littlest twitch in its quest for daytime TV gold. The blue lense adjusted visibly, its pupil dialated slightly before contracting in the light. Probably another close-up shot.
"Jean?" the ball suddenly projected a familiar voice, "Jean, can you hear me?"
"No." her face curled into one of disgust, "Now shut up."
"Jean, you're not... doing anything." Mojo said from the other end of the line, his voice distorted by the speaker, "Do something interesting."
"You're a freak." Jean snarled, "How could you show me all of that?"
"We'll do a lot worse than show you some reruns if you don't get moving!" Mojo hollered from behind his little camera, "We've got a show to shoot, and you're our lead star!"
"Reruns?!" Jean shot up on her bed, "You showed me genocide! You showed me my people being massacred!"
"Your people from a few expendeable alternate realities and simulations, rest assured!" Mojo laugh-lied his way through his placating attitude, "We had to show you what you're up against. You need to be cute (as cute as you can be with that ugly human... thing you've got going on, anyway) and quirky and hilarious if you want to keep their interest. People are tired of the whole brutal killing and raping and pillaging, at least the 14-18 female crowd is. They want something... new. Something unique!"
"You're showing a Battle Royale ripoff with my friend in it." Jean said flatly, "I've read her mind. There was nothing cute or quirky in that Arena."
"It's a demographic thing!" Mojo corrected her gently before his tone took a sharp turn, "Now. Get. Up. Jean. You have a pilot to shoot and we need something good."
"Even if I wanted to entertain you and your gross yellow blob-on-spider people, which I seriously don't want to do, you took away the one thing that was interesting about me." she pointed to her collar, "My powers. You kind of neutered me. But if you want to stick around until my team gets back--which, newsflash, will be any second now--you and your freaks will get to see a whole lot of X-Gene getting thrown around."
"Ugh! Why are you making this so difficult for me? For us? All we want to do is make you a star, Jeannie." Mojo cried through the speaker, "Your powers aren't your only defining feature, you know! You're fiery. You're smart. You charm the pants off of all the little twerps in your group--do that! Make some of that happen!"
"With who?" Jean stood, putting her hands on her hips defiantly, "You? Through a talking eyeball camera? Yeah, that'll be good for ratings."
"D'oooh... you're a snarky little human, aren't you?" Mojo's voice sounded angry, but the unphased and unblinking eyeball camera held no such emotion, "Fine. We'll... work something out. Just... watch some Mojovision and we'll work something out. In the meantime, just be as interesting as possible. But not too interesting-- we need to save something for the holiday break."
"Yeah, I'll try to do that." Jean rolled her eyes as she collapsed back on the bed, her arms spread-eagled as she lay, staring up at the cieling.
"Go watch the Mojovision." Mojo commanded again from the camera as it followed her, "It's good for you."
"Bite me." Jean spat at the lens.
"Go. Watch. The. Mojovision." the speaker sadid slowly and throutgh (what she assumed were) gritted teeth
"Make me."
A sharp jolt of electricity caught Jean off-guard, causing her to flounder and roll off of the bed, where she seized for a bit more before it stopped. She looked around wildly, unable to discern the source of her sudden shock.
"We have our ways." Mojo said proudly, "Your collar doesn't just nullify your psychic powers--it is also equipped with a remote electrical charge. It's light. But it's also adjustable. Just in case you try anything unsavory like, say, trying to remove your collar, I have a handy dandy cattle prod to help coerce you back into my control."
"You're sick."
"And you're missing Maury."
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