December 18th, 2020 - 3:00 PM
Dunkin' Donuts - Pyro burst into the Dunkin' Donuts, a cape of flames fluttering behind him. The glass door was thrown aside so roughly that it shattered. The customers inside of the store panicked, ducking underneath tables. Some of them sprinted to the bathrooms to hide. The workers dove behind the counter, praying to whatever deities they believed in that they would come out unscathed. They weren't paid nearly enough to die in a Dunkin' Donuts.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are," Pyro taunted, his sing-song voice more menacing than playful. "I'm going to count to ten. If you don't come out, I'm going to assume you've decided to decline our generous offer of membership... All the better for me."
Aside from terrified whimpers and the background music in the store -
Oops I Did It Again by Britney Spears - there was absolute silence. Pyro's fire had turned into a pack of three flaming wolves. Each step of their paws left gigantic scorch marks on the floor. "One... Seven, eight, nine, ten!"
The wolves spread throughout the store, looking for their target. Eventually, one of them howled over by the bathrooms and Pyro went inside, kicking down the door of the ladies' room. He kicked in stall after stall, until he found Desiree crouched on top of a toilet, shaking with fear. She tried to focus, to concentrate and wipe out Pyro's senses, but she was too slow - one of his flaming wolves leapt on her and she let out a blood curdling scream.
"Leighton, help!!!!
Veil
Location: the Old Underground Hideout
Skills: N/A
Veil's expression was guarded as she listened to Warlock, especially as he mentioned that the goal of the Hellfire Club was
peace. The last time a villain courted peace on national television, New York had been razed by Loki's army. She didn't trust the Hellfire Club, especially as they used cruel and brutal methods, ones that harmed mutants just as much as humans. With Magneto in their ranks, that told her that
peace was just another world for
domination.
"Warlock, if we had believed that you didn't leave of your own free will, we would've fought to the death to bring you back," she told him sternly.
"We don't abandon each other." She silently prepared herself to throw up a force field to keep Feedback from killing Warlock. Taking a life, that was something that couldn't be undone easily, something that couldn't just be taken back. But her readied action completely dissipated as things took an abrupt turn for the
weird. She didn't even know if what Warlock was proposing was possible. The only person she could think of who had returned from the dead successfully had been Jean Grey thanks to the Phoenix Force. Her brother had pulled Feedback into a hug, offering her what Warlock just had - a chance to see her mother again.
When Xavier had asked her to lead a branch of the Mutant Underground, he hadn't prepared her for discussing the efficacy of necromancy. He hadn't given her any tips on how to dissuade people from heading down the path of the dark arts. Veil adored Harry Potter - and it had had a clear message. Black magic, no matter how good your intentions were, was cursed.
"I'm not an expert on magic or necromancy, but I don't think this would end well," she said, looking at Feedback.
"I know you want your mom back - I get it, I'd want the same if I lost someone close to me... But resurrecting someone from the grave? That's the sort of thing that gets you cursed, results in the death of everyone around you, maybe even the loss of your sanity. If you're going to dabble with that sort of forces... That's opening a doorway. More than just your mom could come through. You've seen Casper, how paralyzed he can get. He can't control what ghosts come from the other side." It had been way more than the agreed ten minutes that they would wait. Something must have been seriously wrong. No one had come out of the fog Spark Plug conjured to attack them - maybe the Hellfire Club had realized Ice Queen was double crossing them.
"Warlock, contact Ice Queen now. Otherwise we're leaving. It's been too long. The innocent could be in serious trouble by this point - it might even be too late."
Casper Theriot
Location: Mutant Underground Hideout - First Floor: Training Room
Skills: Mediumship
For the first time in ages, Ben actually
wished that no one could see him. He was filled with shame.
"Sorry," he said quietly to Jack. He had spent decades with only Casper being able to hear and see him. His verbal filter was pretty much gone, as he wasn't used to other people hearing his snide remarks and comments. The glowing blue aura surrounding him faded away quickly, until Ben wasn't there anymore. Casper couldn't even see him at this point. Ben was just
gone.
The blue glow in Casper's eyes and covering his hands had vanished as well.
"Language!" he told his brother, before sneezing again. He wasn't too sure what was going on with Jack, since he was cussing out his phone from the looks of it. Casper had expected him to be mopey and sad over losing Alexis, not angry and anti-Captain America-y over technology.
"Do you - sneeze - need some - sneeze - help with - sneeze - using a phone?" Casper asked his baby brother.
"Oh gods - sneeze - tissue would be - sneeze - great," Casper replied to Cayden.
"I feel like - sneeze - my nose is - sneeze - an elephant's glory hole!" He really hoped that this minor cold or whatever disease Sunshine had given him would go away soon - that or he'd probably ask James to use his magic hands to make it all go away. Casper's nose was as red as Rudolph the Reindeer's at this point.
"And what - sneeze - makes sense?" he asked his brother.
Sunshine
Location: Mutant Underground Hideout - Aboveground -> First Floor: Training Room
Skills: Disease Manipulation
Sunshine let James hold her, not punching him or giving him a bad case of the seasonal flu or anything of the sort. She had memories - fake ones, she had to remind herself - of her father holding her like this in the other world. She could recall getting to watch cartoons on an iPad, going to amusement parks and screaming on the roller coasters, getting into trouble at school and the teacher making Jack come to settle things. It was painful, knowing that in the other world her life had been a lot better, a lot happier. She had to settle for the hand she was dealt in the real world though - one where her mother had kicked her out before she had even finished kindergarten, where she had grown up on the streets and had to flee during the Battle of New York, where she had been sent to juvi for a crime she didn't commit.
"I guess I should go help your boyfriend before he uses cocaine to stop sneezing." She got up from where she had been sitting, for a moment reluctant again to leave the outdoors and go back underground to where the others were. It was incredibly cold and chilly, snowing even - but she still just loved the open air. She could breathe better.
She went back down into the Underground proper, heading to where the others still were in the training room. She walked up to Casper and cured him in the most violent way possible - she punched him and green mist seemed to come out of his body, dissipating harmlessly into the air.
"You're cured, loser. Congratulations."
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