Itching for a Fight

[Nox]

Nox nodded. "Let's go back here so we don't disturb the festivities." Nox turned to the kids. "Liam, Arabella is grounded she's only to help with the decorations and then she's to go to her room when you are done."

Liam gave him a thumbs up and a nod. Ara just pouted, she wasn't about to get into more trouble with a mouth. But of the three rich kids, she was the most arrogant of them, for four.

Nox lead Jared and Liv back to his room. It was the only place that looked like he might live there. Other than the corner of the living space where his family pictures all stood. Duplicates were in his room around the water feature where Lily the Lotus floated peacefully. Nox plugged in a dongle into a USB port of the computer. "Wicked I've connected the internet to the computer got some data for you to analayzing coming in real time if you want to check it out in real time."

Nox flicked a few screens on the computer in his room and the projections of his before and after images danced in the middle of the room. "This is the area where we see the differences between having the horde and being able to channel, and when they are both gone."

Liv stood and stared at the images. It wasn't the first time she'd seen them, but it was more or less the first time she'd truly understood what she was looking at. She let out a small gasp of either despair or excitement. For all her power and age she was still a little girl who never got to grow up right. Her confidence was growing with Ana now, but she was still learning to be a fully functioning and contributing adult. The Blackthorns had done a number on all of them.

Nox pulled a chair over and sat down near the images. "I don't need to lie down do I, sitting will work?"

[Jared Vanders]

Jared looked at the scans as they were brought up one with the horde and one without. The first question that came to mind was “what was the horde” and he’d get there, but he’d get there the first scan showed a mass on a part of his brain. In the second - it was just gone. There didn’t seem to be any physical scarring. That was interesting.

”Sitting should be fine. I’m going to ask questions you’ve probably been asked a lot before I delve. Might give me an idea of what I’m looking for,”he turned towards Liv. She had made a gasp upon seeing the scans. ”Ypu okay?”

---

Liv nodded. "I'm fine. Just..."

Nox smirked though he knew it was just a natural reaction but he felt nothing of humor or irony or anything that smirk might represent.. "It's one thing to know what's going on and another to see it. Ask away. I'll answer what I can and if Wicked is listening he can add his two cents too." Nox said.

---

Jared nodded and gave a grin. ”I get that,” he said, turning back to Nox. ”First of all, what is the horde and how did you get rid of it. Also do you happen to have a scan of your brain before the horde? A scan of any male channeler’s brain might work as well.”

---

Nox guffawed. "The horde is a parasitic genetically engineered creature, a hybrid between a rougarou and a chupacabra." Not that Jared would have any idea of what that meant. "They bit me, I hacked off my arm so that the parasite wouldn't spread to my body, but something of it managed to get into my blood stream and into my body before that happened creating a link between me and the other creatures.  That's about all we know of it.  Some protein markers and the structure were formed but I had no parasites in me to continue whatever transformation was supposed to take place. Rougarous are essentally mutated humans and the chubacabra are parasites that transform a creature, the two were melded together for some sort of super-soldier gone wrong from the research I've looked at."

Liv just stared at Nox as he spoke, she knew some of what he said, but she was surprised he knew any of it, Nox kne he didn't act smart most of the time, but he had his moments -- this was his life after all.

"The nanobots were not in my body before the horde, And we don't really have any scans that would do you any good."

A voice out of the speakers squawked before settling in "I have mine and Raffe's but they aren't really going to do you much good. Raffe's looks much like Nox's after.  And my computer chip blocks any view of the structures below it, which are in the same location. Not that I'm a channeler or anything. If you are willing I could supply you a course of nanobots and we could scan yours.  And then remove them from your blood stream upon completion of the scan. I know most people aren't as compliant as Nox."

---

Jared listened. He knew monsters existed. Emily had told him about her encounter with a female vampire and rougarou and chupacabras both had legends that could be followed. He wasn’t terribly surprised by it.

”So was it these nanobots that got rid of the horde? Somehow cured the infestation, for lack of a better term, and in doing so took away the power?” if they were connected that was important.

Jared then spoke to the voice from the speakers - the Wicked Truth. Nox had said he might be listening, so Jared wasn’t thrown by the voice. ”Im fine with that. Hoping that we can see what was damaged or taken away by seeing a more healthy scan.” there was little risk. If the nanobots had somehow severed Nox’s connection - it had done so due to the horde and that had taken time. With them being removed, Jared had no qualms with it. Also Rachel had one that could track her should she run away. She hadn’t really responded to it.

Jared turned to Liv. ”Im going to delve him now. If you want to try it, I can describe how I do it. Unfortunately I can’t show you.”

((OoC: With Nox))

[Nox]

Nox explained a little more. "The nanobots were programed to heal me. They healed the infestation as you put it. I think severing the power was coincidental."

Wicked said over the speakers. "I will have a batch of nanobots sent over to Jared's home in the same type of injector as we gave for Rachel's nanobot. I'll need about a weeks worth of data after injection to get the scans we need to do the comparison right. Is that alright?"

Liv grinned. "I know how to do it. Juls showed me now."

Nox prepared for the power it wouldn't hurt but it was still the power.

[Jared Vanders]

Jared nodded in understanding. He wasn't sure he agreed that it was coincidental, but he had no proof to back that up.  There was no reason to keep on about it either.  They weren't here to argue or debate; they were here to find a solution to the issue, and at this point, that didn't seem to be something they needed to worry about yet.

"A week is fine with me," he said, uncertain of how Emily would feel about it, but since it was for Nox and she felt like she owed him a debt for helping with Rachel, she might let it slide. "Let me know if there is anything you want me to do for your data collection. Emily and I will be trying to see if we can share power - if that happens, might be cool to see if something show up in the scan."

Jared nodded at Liv. "Sounds good. We can both delve and then share what we find."

Jared seized the power and formed the delving weave and lay it over Nox. Jared could tell that he had a few bruises from the delving, but what drew his attention was in Nox's head.  The scans showed no physical abnormalities, but there was something wrong for sure. Jared turned his gaze to the scan that showed the horde.  Yeah - it was right there. Right where the horde had been. It was either too small to show up on the scan or it wasn't a physical injury.

Jared moved towards the scan and pointed. "There's a...hole...right there...at the center of where this mass was." Jared turned towards Liv. "Did you feel it?"

[Nox]

Liv unlike Jared put her hands on his shoulder as she stood behind him. The girls always did things a bit differently, he doubted she needed to but self taught rituals were hard to break. Nox felt her hands shaking and he placed his good hand on top of hers to give her support. The shaking didn't stop but she squeezed his shoulder.

There was no menacing presence, no shiver of cold up his spin. He didn't know when they started or when they stopped. Sage made a giddy sound over the speaker as he received fresh new data for his pursuing. He was more of a lurker and stalker than a scientist, but he was as smart if not smarter than his parents and he loved to parse through data. And this was the exact data he wanted even if it wasn't lying down in his little bed, he wanted to the nanobots to experience a delve, to see what they see to see what's going on. To understand. This was exactly what he had wanted of Jensen after Nox had been healed. They just hadn't gotten there yet, Nox was too busy.

Jared spoke of a hole and it didn't surprise Nox any, Liv spoke softly, "Yes. But it's strange." Liv walked around and knelt down in front of Nox and smiled. "I know I'm not strong enough to heal whatever is wrong. But it doesn't feel like I can't. Like severing a finger or something." The fact that she knew she couldn't heal a severed finger meant that she'd tried on one of the kids possibly Ashton. But if she'd tried right away maybe it would have worked, but there was never a case of I can do this right now in any of those kids lives being tormented by the Blackthorns as they were.

Nox smiled. "It's okay. We'll figure it out."

Nox stood up and turned the half smile to Jared. It didn't reach his eyes, he didn't feel happy, didn't feel loss or anything at knowing something was missing. But there was hope, it wasn't a feeling, but it was there. "At least we have something." Nox wondered if Jensen or Morven might be strong enough, or Helena at the Almaz. Ilya's girls were no more powerful than Juls or LIv so they were out.

[Jared Vanders]

Jared nodded and gave Nox an encouraging smile. Nox’s smile never seemed to reach his eyes. It was odd and sad. ”We have something to work on. My own healing skill is low - don’t think I can heal it either. Maybe if combining powers works we can see if that would help, but not even sure if it’s possible. Emily and I will experiment. When we get the scans back from me, maybe we will be able to see something there too.”

Jared shrugged and ran his hand through his hair. He didn’t like leaving things unsolved, but something was wrong in Nox’s head. That wasn’t something you messed with lightly. Thinking through the options would be their best objective. Liv was right. The hole felt strange and Jared hadn’t quite wrapped his head around why it felt strange. Hole didn’t seem to be the right word.

”Yeah - we will figure it out. For now though,” Jared gave another encouraging smile. ”I think those kids would probably love it if you were helping them decorate. I should also probably check on Rachel, but she’s with Elyse so she’s more than likely okay.”