[sub][h3][center]Nicholas[/center][/h3][/sub][hr]
He felt a riddle rippling into the space between his tiny ribs. Wriggling his nerves like a rainstorm. He thought that it would’ve hurt but he felt no pain. He saw nothing. He felt nothing. Nothing at all. But then, the nothing gave way to hearing something, a concatenation of cacophonous human chirps that meant nothing to him.

“You can’t leave until you hurt him, son.”

He tried to feel what it was, the unsolicited sensation stirring his stasis. He wrenched his wrists but found that his struggles only strained his own steel bound wrists, cutting into them like an anchor into a puddle. He yelped helplessly, hoping that perhaps someone might lend him their aid but he found little more than his own dismay. He blinked his eyes, wincing but felt his eyelids raking over each other as clumsily as autumn leaves in the wind. He couldn’t feel his eyes. They were gone.

Then, his nefarious nerves knew what it was he was feeling. Cold. He was cold and wet and weak and scared and, as hard as he had been struggling seconds before, he couldn’t stop shaking now. He couldn’t stop huffing and hissing and batting his tail against his jittering legs. He felt the mystery again but the magic was gone. He didn’t want to know what it was anymore. He’d rather it just go away.

“Son, I can tell you’re not really giving it your all. Believe me, this doesn’t make me happy. I mean it—but you have to learn how to hurt before you can learn how to help. Do you know what the price of not being prepared is?”

He screamed as he felt something distinct: A searing strike streaking across his chest once and then a second and several subsequent times and as he continued quivering, he felt his skin opening like 
[hr]
Nic sat up in bed.

He’d had the dream again. Where he was the squirrel that his dad made him practice paining on. He peaked over to the clock. There were still several hours before he would have to make his way over to the rendezvous with the others. He and Keaton had spent the last several days making preparations for this.

Several hours until go time.

He could try to get some more shuteye. After all, if he weren’t on his A-game he may as well not even go but, on the other hand, even if he did slip back between his bedsheets, he knew that he wouldn’t be well-rested. He felt the lightning in his limbs, as his body was adrenalized. With all the surveillance of the Spire, he had practically gorged himself on rest.

So, he decided that he’d make the best use of the time he had. First things first, breakfast. As he peeked through his cabinet, he was not sure what he wanted. But he did know that he would be busy that day. For that matter, so would everyone else involved. It occurred to him that, despite his best efforts to map out that facility by eyejacking the faculty, his actual mission parameters weren’t particularly well-defined. There is a decent chance that most of them could go off into that grand old goodnight without even constituting a failure. He wasn’t the type to plan for failure. Apparently, he was just the type that failed to plan.

And the cost for his arrogance. The price for his unpreparation? The price of that particular privilege would be paid in his friends’ lives, and depending on how he counted, he had about ten of those, even if he were extremely lax in the criteria for what constituted a friend.

He owed it to them to do better. All things considered, it was too late to dramatically redefine the mission. He wasn’t nearly competent enough of an organizer to make that work, which he admitted was one of his major failings as a man. So, he’d at least do for them what he could.

He prepared some goodies for the crew. While his products were baking and otherwise readying, he relaxed his mind by doing burpees, dressing up in the coziest clothes he could clasp his clammy little claws onto. By the time he was done, the smells filling his room were mouthwatering and gut-wrenching in equal measure. He decked himself out in black spandex, with a turtleneck under a trenchcoat with his hair slicked back for the first time in his entire life.

That’s when the clarion call to misconduct came clamoring.

[B]”[I]Some folks inherit star spangled eyes
Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord
And when you ask them, "How much should we give?"
Ooh, they only answer "More! More! More!" Yo![/I]”[/B]

“Cara!” Nic yowled, “Silence the alarm!” before stuffing the many pockets of his trenchcoat with his semi-edible menagerie. “The time has come!”
[hr]
His entire life, he’d struggled with the weight of being good at what he was meant for and literally nothing else. Today was different. Today he was defiant. Then he remembered that he belonged to an extremely illegal militia previously. Even his compliance was defiant. Was this any different. Did this small scale paramilitary insurgency he was a key part of really constitute a meaningful change in his behavior? The last one was his family. This one was made up of his friends.

He felt a small pair of beady eyes looking upon him before realizing that this really was different. These people had never forced him to torture his favorite squirrel and would probably never do so, not that any of them would be capable. [I]This was better[/I].
When he arrived at the coffee shop alongside his company of comrades, he smiled victoriously.

When Lynn shouted "Who the fuck wants to live forever," he threw his fist into the air, sharing in the sentiment. Today was the day.
“Alright, everybody. First thing first. We can’t properly survive a session of such a spine-tingling subterfuge without the proper preparations. In this case, I extend my most salient sustenance!” He reached a gloved hand into his breast facing trenchcoat pocket before withdrawing a steaming bag of buttery biscuits stuffed with perfectly prepared bacon, eggs and his own secret blend of cheeses. “Everyone take one, this is non-negotiable. I don’t want to lose any of you to an empty stomach.”

As he opened the bag, a delicious hiss spread through the vicinity, smelling like happiness. “To keep the mindset right and for the sake of morale, I’ve taken the liberty of picking codenames for everyone. You’ll notice a pattern here since I figured it’d be easier to remember this way. Archie,” he pointed to the young man, “you’re [I]The Beast[/I]. Lynn, [I]Phoenix[/I]. Amelia, [I]Nightcrawler[/I]. Eli,” he paused and grinned uncontrollably before recomposing himself. “Eli, you’re [I]Angel[/I]. Natalie, [I]Colossus[/I]. I’m Cyclops and Keaton is [I]Professor Xavier[/I].” He looked over at Packet. “Packet’s fine as is but if you want in, I think Forge would be a wonderful name for you.”

“Lynn,” Nic said, stepping towards her, retrieving a satchel stuffed with cotton and mason jars, “these are for you. I made some napalm and canned it for you so that you could have an easier time with your powers. Otherwise I have a small retinue of smoke bombs in case I don’t want to see out of anyone’s eyes anymore.”