---

---

---

Max couldn't help but feel some form of guilt and remorse as James and Harry went on. The idea that James and the others had been worrying over them for three months. It was a lot to take in. Coupled with Harry's newer insight on how they might be so busy running that they forgot to see if they were even being chased. He decided to do some quick mental math, realizing that in a few months he would become 20 years old. He'd been on the run for years now, hiding, stealing, and using his powers to safeguard himself. Now they finally found a place where they can stop and unwind and here he was creating a barrier for them.

Max saw the way that that hurt Sunshine. As if he was attacking her home, her very own livelihood that she had built while the rest of them were gone. He didn't know what to say, or do, his shoulders slumped and he bit his lower lip slightly. "Alright, let me know what you all decide. Anyone not wishing to stay I will gladly portal back to the mainland. I am, however, going to stay here and give it a shot." Max made his way towards the rooms, picking the door at the far end on the right and swiping his hand towards it, magic flowing out and sparking in a square on it. A plaque was created that read


His eyes narrowed at the sight and he cast another, creating a new one that read


Max made his way towards the door, trying to pull off the plaque and seeing that it was on there for good. Rolling his eyes he snapped his fingers and a spark ignited at the corners and fizzled Havoks plaque away, leaving only Max's on the door.

He entered the room and as he closed the door behind him something began to materialize onto the bed. His name was written on the strange geometric sphere, but there was nothing else stating what it was or why. Max circled the bed, keeping his eyes on the object before finally picking it up. There were small window holes that he could view in revealing images as he looked in. He found that certain parts could move, pull, and twist, turning the strange foreign gift into a puzzle to be solved.

---

---

---

Havok pulled back at Sunshines comment. But his eyes shot darts towards Havok as he blew up on her. "I had only meant that they both had very keen eyes for spotting such things, but you're right I should've Included you as well given your strong moral attitude and good judgement of characters." He stayed silent for a moment before agreeing with Waverly. "Perhaps making enemies of your allies is a bad idea, Havok. You can prove you're right while not being a dick, I promise, it's possible."

Havok shifted his gaze onto the rest of the room, most having agreed to stay and try the place out before having a negative opinion. His crossed arms lowered, gently placed over his stomach as it began to growl a bit. "Perhaps the first place we can all check out is the local food joints? Sunshine, know any great places to dine? Preferably one that can handle a sudden group of...13?" He gave her a small smile, still unsure of his place here, but trying to at least remain put together.

---

If it hadn’t been for the fact that he was pressed up against Casper, James would have lunged at that self important douchebag. Before attempting to sacrifice the entire MU for a chance to get his dick wet, James didn’t have an opinion on Havok. They rarely interacted, James would throw him the occasional hi, but at the end of the day, James was focused on building and maintaining the various systems they’d managed to scrape together for power and running water and all the fun stuff for basic hygiene and Havok was off scaring children for fun or whatever assholes did in their spare time. But now, after watching days old members fight against the fucking Brotherhood, after Harry’s serious threat of paralysis, James couldn’t tolerate anything that came out of his mouth. If anyone else in this room suggested they’d been influenced or changed by an island full of telepaths (still something he wasn’t really chill with, if he was being honest), he’d understand. Telepaths were terrifying and ones working for or with the Hellfire club were even worse. But Havok didn’t have that right and all James wanted to do was slug the fucking asshole across the face and revel in the sound of the jackass’ jaw breaking.

But he didn’t. Sure, he could feel his jaw clenching and unclenching with the effort not to lunge at Havok but he kept himself in his seat and just let out a sigh. James pressed an appreciative kiss for the support to Casper’s hand once he’d recaptured one and leaned further on his boyfriend, his attention drawn by the talk of food. “We have some stuff here. Nothing fancy, sandwich stuff and other stuff that’s easy to throw together, if you want to stay in after all that. I figured that now that we can actually get real food consistently, I’d get everyone’s opinions on a grocery list and make a run tomorrow.” James offered. “But if you want to get out some more, there’s a pretty good place down the road. It’s laid back and relaxing; Miranda and I grab drinks there every so often.”

---

---

---

Zari's eyes grew wide when there was the conversation revolving around food. "Oooooooh, food sounds like a great thing! I'm hungry, anything sounds like it would be better than nothing! That's just my thinking, as long as it's edible!" Zari chimed in happily with a big smile on her face. Mr. Eyeball was floating next to her and just sort of beeped and seemingly shook his head at her. "What? I'm hungry! And no don't you dare say that I'm always hungry or something like that!" she responded, with the robot just sort of beeping at her.

Jack was paying attention to the conversation, well, most of the conversation and what everyone was doing aside from Casper, since Casper as usual was making a fool of himself. Currently, the conversation seemed to be heading towards food or going off to go find something. His attention was drawn away by Max though, as he decided that he was going to just walk away, and... Apparently claim a room all to himself? All the rooms had two beds in them, and then there was something else that might be a bit awkward to talk about. But the fact that Max was doing that sort of thing on purpose or something, just what?

He looked down the hallway again, before going over to Sunshine, "I know this might be a bit awkward or whatever to point out, and I know you still for the most part just want to pick fights with me, but Max just decided he was going to claim an entire room to himself. Aside from that just being a stupid move, that room also just so happens to be the room that has been yours..." Yeah, Max was being a bit full of himself. And truthfully, Jack was contemplating following after Max and just sort of kicking him out of the house entirely.

She was wondering what Jack was talking about, when suddenly her vision shifted. Suddenly she'd see a group of beings in front of her, and it took her a moment to recognize who exactly they were. It was a different version of the Norns. Actually, now that she thought about it, they weren't the exact same ones she was used to, which meant that they were likely the 666 versions of them, and not the ones from her home reality. So why were they wanting to pop up to her? This wasn't exactly her home reality...



To everyone else, they couldn't see that entire thing. No, they'd see Zari go instantly still, and Mr. Eyeball started zipping around her as if he was trying to get her attention. Her eyes had gone gray or something, and the robot was starting to beep rather loudly as if trying to get everyone else to figure out what the hell was going on with Zari.

---

---

---

She knew that there was a chance someone else would wander into the area where she was, however she was a bit surprised with the words that Lorna spoke to her. In the past, Miranda had been a bit scared of that sort of thing herself, and now she was hearing her kind of step daughter (even though she still wasn't married or anything to Magneto) telling her the exact same thing that concerned her all those years ago. "...Exactly how late? Since if it is only a few days, that isn't concerning... A few weeks would be..."

"... More than a few weeks..." Polaris admitted, her eyes darting around the room, like a caged animal searching for an escape.

The way that Lorna said that to her made her wonder, and she instantly thought about something else. "...How far along are you?" she asked gently, giving her a soft smile.

".... Far."

That was an interesting thing to think about, and her brain started wondering about a few other things. "...Based on your reaction and everything, I'm guessing that nobody else knows about this? Or does someone else know aside from me now?"

Polaris shook her head. "Only my therapist," she joked. "... Not that I have one right now."

Now another thing occurred to her, with regards to who the potential father of this child of Lorna's would be. The thing that crossed her mind was how Magneto still didn't know that he had one more child, and telling the father would depend on who it was. "...You don't have to tell me who the father is. Actually, I know the feeling of perhaps not telling anyone about a baby, even the father of the child... It all depends on what you want, and what sort of life you want for your kid..." it would be somewhat clear to Lorna that Miranda was clearly speaking from experience at this point with her words.

---

---

---

Andy smiled at Sunshine. She hadn't decided who she liked out of the group, except for Zari. Everyone was so much. But she wanted to like Sunshine and Kristine since they were around her age.

Andy was hungry. She didn't care much what they ate either. She had gone hungry enough in her life that she knew how to be hungry. She only nodded at the suggestion of food. She didn't know how to go about claiming a space for herself. She wasn't any good at that. Too much of her life had been tiny space given to her.

When Zari went still Andy tilted her head watching her. Was something wrong? Had Mr. Eyeball said something. She started to move toward her, but she was back against a wall, away from the main group a bit, trying to not take up any space. She edged her way toward Zari, reaching for her, but not quite touching her.

"Zari, are you okay?" She asked, her voice a bit quiet, trying to not draw attention to Zari if the others hadn't noticed.

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

Sunshine paused, before nodding. "Yeah, I can show you the Akademos. You'll want to change clothes for it, lot of people wear discount X-Men uniforms when they're there," she admitted, rolling her eyes slightly. "I guess it's what serves as mutant gym clothes, but I dunno." She wasn't a huge fan of the X-Men, but a lot of people on the island were. It was ironic, of course, as Sunshine was very well aware that no member of the X-Men had ever come to Genosha before... Well, besides Havok, but he didn't exactly count.

"Not that the X-Men come around... Like do you really think Iron Star is gonna leave her rich ass tower of privilege to come here?" Sunshine scoffed. No one asked her to continue, but she decided to anyways - she and her friends here loved ranting about the X-Men. It always got them riled up. "The X-Men are kinda as bad as flatscans. They don't actually care about mutants - it's why they don't work and Genosha does. We aren't busy kissing flatscans' asses."

Havok let out a huffy breath, before nodding at Waverley. "Sorry. You're right," he grumbled. It was hard for him to muster that much of an apology - and he was clearly tense, on edge. Others in the group may have been taking this well, but every fiber of Havok's being was telling him that they were in grave danger, and he didn't like sitting around and doing nothing about it.

Veil felt like a vein in her head was going to burst, seeing the way Max baited Havok with the door. However, she had a bigger issue with the action - there were only six rooms in the place. Max claiming a room for himself was going to force more people to have fewer space. She didn't like assuming in her mental math that Sunshine wasn't going to be staying with them, but even then, everyone was going to have to have a roommate - there were thirteen of them to six rooms. Veil walked up to the room Max had claimed and she knocked on the door once, before opening it up. "You do realize you have to have a roommate, right? Everyone does. We're already going to have to have a room of three to fit everyone," she pointed out to him bluntly.

"It's not fair for you to get an entire room to yourself, and then make six people in the group have to share two rooms," she then added, hoping that she got her point across. If she hadn't, well, then Veil would assign herself as Max's roommate. She had expected that he would've known they'd have to share, given his time with the Mutant Underground and how normalized sharing was there.

Sunshine was feeling increasingly frustrated and talked over. Echo had asked her where they could get some food, only for James to answer. Max had claimed her room for his own, only for Veil to go off to deal with it and Jack mentioning it to her. As much as she loved all of these people, it made her want to scream and pull her hair out. She'd have to blow some steam with Marrow later after showing Kris the Akademos. "I didn't know your name was Sunshine too," she told James, a slight edge to her otherwise cheerful voice. "But yeah, there's a Tiki Bar nearby called the Lagoon. Kinda the only restaurant at the moment," she said, more or less telling Echo the same thing James had.

Casper perked up - both at the kiss to his hand and the fact that a tiki bar was being discussed for dinner or whatever meal this was. He wasn't even certain what time of day it was, but his stomach was telling him it was food o'clock and he wasn't one to deny his bodily interests no matter what time of day. "Ooo, so that means the place is both the best and the worst place to eat on Genosha?" Casper commented with a smirk, very proud of himself.

The smirk faded though, replaced with boyish curiosity. "Do you think they know how to make waffles? Do you have waffle makers on Genosha or are those too human-y for everyone here? Oo maybe I should open up my own waffle shack here - I could call it... Casper's Syrup Surprise Shack! The CSSS for short! Wait, no, Casper and James' Syrup Surprise Shack! It'll be so romantic, babes, I bet we'd get in all of the magazines. Are there magazines here? Ooo we could start the mutant Vogue - Mogue!"

"... I swear you got stupider," Sunshine commented, before heading down the hallway, ducking underneath Veil's arm, and going into her room. She looked at Max, seeing how he had some weird cube thing in his hands. "If you're going to be my roommate, you should know that I hate it when people snore," she said, crossing her arms. "Also, I'm allergic to hairspray, if that's going to be a problem for you. And you can't fuck Jack in here. You can do that anywhere else. Those are the rules."

---

Polaris nodded, little wisps of green energy appearing around her at random intervals, all of the metal objects in the palace near them clattering gently. Her anxiety was through the roof. She had avoided telling anyone about this, simply being in denial for the first few months that anything was happening - that she was carrying her and Havok's child... And while she was lucky to still not be showing very much, she was terrified at the idea of being a mother. The last time she had slept with Havok hadn't been too long before X-Cutioner, the two of them meeting up in secret.

But after what had happened, their relationship was over. It was done for real that time - something Havok had helped to usher along after he had more or less kidnapped her. Seeing him awake today had forced her to confront reality - she didn't know how much longer she could keep the pregnancy a secret, her father (the complete asshole) had already started making comments about how she was gaining weight and needed to cut back. "I need you to help me hide her," Polaris said softly. "Father's already growing suspicious. The telepaths only don't know since they can't read my mind," she added, wringing her hands slightly. Polaris wore a green headpiece made from the same material as Magneto's helmet.

"I can't trust anyone to know who she is... Genosha's a paradise... but Father's the snake. He'll kill her... I know he will."

---

---

---

---

Callie looked towards Max for a moment heading over towards one of the rooms, and Veil going over to mention it to Max and Jack saying that it was Sunshine's room. Shaking her head slightly, looking over towards the others mainly Jack, and James since they were here the longest after all, and they'd be sharing rooms pretty much. And Callie had a feeling that James and Casper were going to rooming together no matter what. "Should probably figure out about the sleeping situation soon, figure who wants to room with who." Callie said as she made her way over towards Veil seeing Sunshine going under Veil's arm.

"If Sunshine doesn't have any issues it should be fine then." Callie said unless Max wanted to sleep somewhere else Callie turned towards Zari seeing her going into some sort of trance like state. She approached her along with Andy hearing the eyeball buzzing and beeping rather loudly and a bit annoying as well to in her opinion. Though she wasn't any kind of medical profession Callie started to wave her hand in front of Zari's face. "I'm not sure whats going on." Callie said looking over at Andy.

---

---

---

---

Kristina looked at the others as Max made his way over towards one of the rooms to claim it for himself, she shook her head slightly when Jack Veil had pointed out that it was Sunshine's room. She didn't mind rooming with anyone here, she had roommates before when she was in college as well. At the mentioning of food she was actually pretty hungry and after being frozen like Captain America for the last five months she wanted to eat something. "Some food would be nice." Kristina said, wanting to go out and explore the island some more as well to.

Kristina noticed Zari going into some kind of trance like state as well and wanted to approach, but she noticed that Callie and Andy had approached her, she wanted to make sure that she didnt overwhelm the girl when she came to. "Is she going to be alright?" Kristina asked looking at the others looking a bit concerned.

---

---

---

---

Waverley was surprised when Havok begrudgingly apologized. She'd expected him to blow up, storm off to a room that wasn't his like Max had. It was a...welcome surprise. She relaxed a little, her lips curving up into a small smile as she gave Havok a encouraging pat on the arm. "You're fine, dude," she reassured, before tensing up at the familiar sight of Max doing magic down the hall. She whirled her head over to see exactly the boy was up to, only to get a look at his newly crafted sign. Part of her wanted to chew him out for using his vastly dangerous and unpredictable powers so frivolously, but the more wholesome (and powerful) part of her just wanted to make a sign of her own. So instead of charging after Max, she got to work rummaging around the apartment.

"Oh, that'd be dope!" she called back to Casper from the kitchen, gathering the stuff she'd need to make her own DIY sign. She came back, holding up a freshly torn piece of paper from her notebook up to the door of one of the rooms as she began to write, talking as she did, inserting herself into Casper and James' hypothetical restaurant plan. "Maybe we could name all the foods after the Mutant Underground members! The Ben Egg-toplasm Surprise, or the Kingston Coffee, or Sunshine-y side up eggs, or Echo and Veil's French Toast? I know they're technically from Canada, but that's kinda French!" she added, before stepping back, revealing her sign.



A rather big smiley face took up the bottom third of the paper, and matched Waverley's own grin. "Perfect. I'm good with rooming with whoever. Now, to this Lagoon?" She offered, before seeing Valkyrie's state, her smile faltering. "Er, unless you don't want to, Z. We can eat here if you'd prefer."

---

---

---

Max looked up from the metallic viewer and towards the door. His eyes barely hovering over the object and towards Veil. "You'd think after months of being here and being classified as heros that they could've built us an apartment with separate rooms for a change." There was a small pause before his attention was pulled back towards the box, staring at it thinking. "Either way, I can create more signs as needed. So no worries, so long as I'm not stuck with Jack or Havok I couldn't care less about who my roommate is. Oh, or Waverly, but that's more because I'm sure she would rather sleep at the end of the hall from me." He was about to place his eye back into the viewfinder when suddenly Sunshine popped up from underneath Veil's arm. This was exactly the reason he wanted his own room.

Max blinked slowly as Sunshine gave her list of rules for rooming with her, taking in the space around him and seeing the faint signs of someone having already lived in this room. She didn't have much but there were small things littered about, fully taking Max away from his puzzle and focusing on her. "Fine by me. I don't snore, hairspray is bad for the ozone, and Jack is no where on my 'to fuck list' so I think we're good. If anything you're the least likely to bother me while I'm trying to do spellwork, or study, or work on this." Max waved the puzzle box slightly, still wondering what it was and what it held inside.

---

---

---

Havok apologizing was not something that Harry expected. He still hadn't apologized for endangering the entire Mutant Underground by taking Magneto's daughter in, which subsequently caused him to become paralyzed for a small amount of time. Harry had stayed leaning against the wall, trying to stealthily move his hand behind his back and feel the spot where Magneto had embedded a shard of metal in him. The memory was still fresh in his mind, having been only days ago since it happened to him from his perspective. He tried not to dwell on it for too long, seeing his twin go check on Max's sudden change in behavior with Sunshine following suit.

Harry tried not to sigh, looking at the others still in the room and trying to give an upbeat smile. "All right then. Why don't we go and check out this Lagoon restaurant. See what sort of mutant foods they may have come up with, that is if no one wants to shower and get ready beforehand." He looked at the clothes he was wearing, then down to the ones he'd gotten back from Renegades house, debating if he should change outfits. Making him wonder if the mutants here knew about what they were wearing the day it all happened, if these clothes would be emblazoned in history as heroic suits.

---

---

---

Jack just sort of shrugged slightly when Veil and Sunshine more or less took off down the hallway to talk to Max, and he did have to stop himself from laughing somewhat at the fact that it seemed like Veil was going over to talk to Max like she was a disappointed parent. It was kind of amusing in his brain, of course, then there was Zari who for some reason was just staring off into space. That was a bit weird, considering he tended to compare her a bit to Casper in the way that she seemingly just tended to ramble a whole lot and only sometimes make any actual sense.

Speaking of Casper, he started going off on a bit of a rant with regards to everything, and apparently he was talking about waffles again, which wasn't too surprising at all. "Casper, you constantly seem to have a one track mind for food don't you? Like you never really seem to want any other food," he commented with a bit of an eye roll towards his brother. To be fair, with Casper not being around, things had been fairly quiet without him around honestly, which had taken a little getting used to.

Zari was so confused as to what she was seeing, or what was being said to her, her brain was trying to process the Norns words and the prophecy they spoke, when suddenly everything went away, and the next she knew, there were people waving hands in front of her and asking if she was okay. "Yeah I'm fine," she explained simply, before she reached into her bag and pulled out her journal and a pen, before she flipped open to the original prophecy that she had been given. Like just about everything she wrote, the other prophecy was written in ancient Norse, so no one else could really read it.

She started writing down the new one, on the empty space right below the other one, and once again writing not in English. This was just the easiest way for her to write things down. Not to mention, despite this prophecy being different from the other one, it seemed to clearly be connected to it. Now she was just sort of ignoring the others, trying to figure out what exactly had been said and what exactly they had been saying. Of course, she still hadn't figured out the full previous one, that was for sure. Now she had another one to deal with too.

---

---

---

"I know exactly what you mean better than you think..." she said softly, as her brain started to wonder about what if she should tell Lorna about her own experiences hiding a kid from Magneto. She knew how difficult things could be with Magneto, and how it wasn't really any place for a child to grow up (honestly for the most part Pietro and Wanda were kind of an example of what could happen with that) and she could also understand Lorna's wish for the child to still grow up on Genosha. The problem was keeping that hidden from everyone else and finding someone who'd be willing to keep a secret with regards to it.

Miranda gave Lorna a smile, "I'll help you... But I need you to know why, and it isn't just because you asked... Over 26 years ago I found myself in your shoes, not wanting to have a child of mine anywhere near your father... But unlike you, I didn't have a place to keep him safe, or ensure that he would be safe, like Genosha here... So I had to give him up much like you are doing for yours... He doesn't even know I exist, but honestly, things are better that way, for everyone in that case... Later it might make you sad, but you do what's best for your child... So I'll help you, since I did the exact same thing years ago."

---

---

---

Tension released from Andy's shoulders when Zari moved. Her reassurance made more tension release. When she glanced at the notebook and saw she had no clue what the paper said she gave up. Maybe she'd see if Zari would teach her the language some other time. All Andy knew was English and Spanish. Truthfully her Spanish wasn't that good either. She hadn't used it much since leaving California. Except with one of the patrons of the Drummond's gym.

Since Zari had snapped out of whatever fugue state she had gone into there was no reason to respond to any of the others. She wanted to melt back into the background and be ignored again. Though, she was pretty hungry. She hadn't eaten in literally months technically. "Let's grab a room and then some food." She said quietly to Zari once it seemed she was finished writing. She knew she could room with Zari since they had once already.

---

Before he could apologize, she was gone. He’d been so focused on not separating Havok’s head from his shoulders, James had apparently missed a crucial part of the conversation. Fabulous. He’d make that a point to get to before the end of the day, at the very least, but right now he was feeling emotionally wringed out. He leaned his head on Casper’s shoulder, chuckling as Casper rambled on about a waffle shack. “I haven’t been on the lookout for magazines, hon. But we can ask around when we’re out, if you want.” James replied, pushing himself to his feet and offering Casper a hand up.

“I’m good to go whenever everyone is.” James replied to Echo, glancing over where a little group hovered near Zari. Whatever was going on didn’t seem life threatening so James wrote it off as nothing with a sense of relief; he’d just gotten everyone back on their feet and he wasn’t eager to see anyone else need his help. “Oh, babes let’s get your-” James blinked. “I was going to say let’s get your stuff situated in our bedroom but I guess we probably should get you some stuff first. We can do that today too if you’re not too worn out once you get some food in you.”

---

---

---

---

---

Please check your inboxes for your individual collabs for Episode Two

These collabs are on 10 day counters, based on this post - once this post hits day 10, your collab needs to have been completed + posted.

---

Casper had dressed up in his finest clothing - which really wasn't saying much, given that he didn't have a lot. His mother had surprised him though, perhaps sensing that he'd run into a situation like this. She had gotten him a form-fitting sparkly black dress. He felt like a princess with it on and now, he was ready to be doted upon by his prince. "Okay, Jamie, where we going?" Casper asked his boyfriend, excited and eager for their first real date in aaaaaages. "And Ben, you can come but it's $20 to watch."

"Eww, gross. I have better things to do."

James gave himself one last look in the mirror, feeling oddly nervous. Maybe giddy was a better word for the butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling but he felt like he did on their first date to the boardwalk carnival. Maybe it would have been stranger if the Mutant Underground wasn't in constant danger but it was such a welcomed relief to not feel the dread of impending doom that he didn't care. Everyone was awake, he was going on a date with the love of his life, and even though things were still a little tense, finding normal was looking more and more likely.

James hadn't spent much time before now considering his wardrobe. He was pretty sure he could count the number of different outfits he wore since waking up in Genosha on one hand. Clothing and style and all that hadn't ever been something he really cared about but he'd taken sometime to get something a nicer than his usual fair. A new button up shirt, a nice leather jacket, new jeans, and a pair of boots that weren't his usual steel toed ones he used to wear at the Underground or his current, worse for wear sneakers.

"Well right now, I'm trying to convince myself to not to drag you back to bed. Who said you were allowed to look so damn pretty." James reminded himself to do something for Renegade in return for getting Casper this dress. He satisfied himself with only a kiss though. "Let's go grab a bite to eat first. I want to show everyone how lucky I am to have the best boyfriend in the world before I drag you off. Sound good?"

Casper smirked, very pleased with the effect the dress was having on James. Casper's sense of fashion was all about what he wanted to wear, but it was an added bonus when it was something fun for James as well - almost like a two for one special. It was definitely worth putting up with Ben's grouchy nagging over. Somehow, death had only made Ben even more boring, a feat that Casper hadn't even realized was humanely - or mutantly - possible. "Hmm, only one problem," Casper said, pausing for dramatic effect, "I am the one with the best boyfriend in the world - one with an ass that would put Captain America to shame even."

James laughed, heat prickling at the tips of his ears. "Putting America's ass to shame? High praise." He threaded his fingers into Casper's, kissing the back of his boyfriend's hand, and led him out the door. "You know, I was thinking about making funnel cakes as a cute little throw back to our first date but then I realized considering my limited culinary skills, it was probably better than I didn't try to speed run that process." James chuckled.

Casper's eyes started sparkling, as he gasped. "Babe!!!!" he gushed, positively dazzled at the idea of James making funnel cakes. He adored funnel cakes - almost as much as he loved waffles. They were up there in his top food groups. "Maybe we could try making them together? And maybe I could use my funnel to give you some cake, if you catch my drift," he said teasingly.

“We might end up having dessert before dinner if you keep saying stuff like that babes.” James warned with a chuckle. “Making funnel cakes together sounds fun. We’ll just have to try and make sure not all of it ends up like last time we had them. I’d like to actually eat a few, not just start a food war even if it was a delicious one.” James let go of Casper’s hand for the moment, booping Casper on the nose in a way reminiscent of the beginning of their food fight at the boardwalk. He slid his arm around Casper’s waist after, pulling him a little closer and relishing the warmth of their sides pressed together. He’d missed the casual physical affection most of all; everything else about Casper was amazing but the ease with which Casper indulged James in his need to be touching him as often as possible made him fall in love with Casper a little more every time.

"What's wrong with having dessert before dinner?" Casper teased. "You know I have a sweet tooth - and a sweet dick," he said more bluntly. He would have continued with some more rather naughty talk, if it hadn't been for the person who just came into view, wandering out of the Tiki Bar, clearly beyond wasted - the resident asshole himself, the duke of dickery, Havok. "... Wanna bet on how long till he falls over? Or accidentally blasts a hole through a tree?"

James sighed. He should have known. Anytime this asshat was in the general vicinity of people enjoying themselves, Havok showed up to ruin it. It was like some fucked up sixth sense. "I'm surprised he hasn't blasted something already." James grumbled. He chewed the inside of his lip, considering. Nothing had happened yet. As long as Havok stumbled on home and passed out, James didn't need to intervene but could he really trust the walking TNT stick to get home?

"I’m calling faceplant in 30 seconds." James offered, unimpressed with Havok’s inebriation.

"If you're wrong, I get a kiss," Casper said, more or less setting the terms of the bet. "I'm thinking.... Twenty nine seconds, I'm Price is Righting you," he boasted with a snicker. Unfortunately for both of them, Havok kept his balance - and ended up walking straight up to James and Casper. Whether or not Havok had meant to come up to them was up for debate of course.

"You should make sure he gets home okay," Ben advised.

"Ben, shush, I'm trying to have fun!" Casper whined.

"Hey, bros..." Havok mumbled, swaying on his feet.

“You can get a kiss either way.” James shook his head fondly even as Havok approached them. James held his hands out as the drunkard swayed in front of them. “Alright dude, what’s going on?” James gestured at all of Havok. He wasn't really invested in whatever drove Havok to the bottom of a cup but he would feel a little guilty if he didn't make sure the guy couldn't get home safely.

"Don't dude me, we aren't dudes," Havok mumbled, before falling forward, into James' hands.

"This is what you look and sound like when you're high," Ben pointed out, much to Casper's shock and disgust. "I do not look like a dudebro, Ben!" he whined. "Look, Havok, I'm sure it's very hard... being straight or whatever, but we're kinda on a date right now, so unless you're going to make us some waffles, maybe go find someone else to bother?" Casper suggested somewhat selfishly.

James had to keep himself from flinching, like when an insect unexpectedly lands on you. He'd had his arms up in case Havok needed a hand to keep him upright, not to invite him to launch himself completely in James' arms and he made no effort to hide his own annoyance with the situation. He absolutely agreed with Casper and if Havok hadn't been completely and totally wasted, James wouldn't have given him a second thought but James hadn't ever been able to tell someone who needed help no before and just because it's Havok won't change that.

The first part of Casper's statement made him huff in amusement but he fixed Casper with an earnest, pleading look. "We can at least get him back to the apartment, right? He might be a total dick but he's going to collapse out here and I'd feel awful leaving someone out here like that." James asked, hoping that if he pouted enough Casper would let him off the hook for delaying their date to help someone neither of them particularly cared for. "I'll make you waffles in bed tomorrow to make up for it?"

Casper sulked slightly. He knew it wasn't too far to get back to the apartment, but he really hadn't been imagining a drunk Havok as being a key part of his night. He had been envisioning far more intimate and creative activities with James - hell, Casper should've been the one leaning on James for support, not the Summers douche. "Do we have to?" Casper whined, giving James puppy dog eyes.

"M'fine," Havok mumbled.

James felt guilt churning in his stomach as Casper turned the puppy dog eyes on him. He really wanted to give in to Casper and just dump the asshole on the side of the road so he could have an uninterrupted night with his man but he'd feel just as guilty, if not more, if he left Havok to fend for himself while he was defenseless and even more so if Havok lost his temper and decided to get all blasty on some poor unsuspecting people. It was all but guaranteed that James was going to help Havok home the second they crossed his path. Hopefully, Casper wouldn't be too upset at the delay.

"You know you're the cutest person in the world and even more so when you do that but of this was you and someone ignored you just to go on a date, I'd be fucking pissed." James replied as apologetically as he could. "We just have to drop him off on the couch and we can go out again, okay? We'll be back on track in no time, baby."

"Jackie did it all the time!" Casper insisted - whether or not he was lying or stretching the truth was another question. However, his shoulders slumped slightly in acceptance. "Fiiine, we'll help the straight," Casper grumbled. "But we're drawing on his face with a sharpie," he then decided, as if that was some sort of huge win in this little negotiation.

"I heard that," Havok said, before taking a step back and promptly faceplanting into the ground. He let out a pathetic little whimper. "... I miss Polaris... She was always here for me... And now she isn't and this stupid island ground is here for me instead... And it's not even my favorite island..."

"Okay, babes. You can draw on his face if you want." James grunted as he pulled Havok to his feet. James set a path back to the apartment, rolling his eyes at the absolutely inane whining. Irritation bubbled in his stomach and he couldn't keep himself quiet, plenty of months of festering anger taking the opportunity to seep out. "Havok, you're whining to the wrong person. Just because I don't want to abandon you on the side of the road doesn't mean I give a shit about the bullshit in your head." James snapped, hoping the jackass would just stay quiet.

"... Oh shit, he snapped!" Ben exclaimed, torn between excitement over the drama and concern for James' wellbeing. Casper must have been a horrible influence on him. Even Casper was surprised, seeing the anger come out of his boyfriend. And if he was being honest with himself, it was a little bit hot. He liked seeing angry James. Casper, if he had more shame, would've been wishing he wasn't wearing such a tight dress at the moment, but Casper was Casper so he felt no shame. Maybe that was his real mutation. "Is there anything else you want to say to Havok, babe?" Casper asked.

"I don't want the bullshit in your head either!" Havok snapped back. "You act like I'm some sort of... some sort of monster, but I'm not. I'm a good guy. Why can't she see I'm a good guy..."

"A good guy? Is that how you really fucking see yourself? You haven't once, just once, looked in the mirror and realized how much of an asshole you are?" James demanded incredulously, sending his boyfriend a flat look at the obvious egging on. James did have quite a bit to say to Havok and now that he'd started he doubted he could stop. All the irritation and frustration after the whole situation combined with all the unpleasant feelings he'd bottled during their slumber were too much of a train wreck to stop now.

"Let's review. You kidnapped a girl who left because she wanted to and turned the entire MU, the people who have had your back and have supported you, into your accomplices, fully painting a fucking target on our backs. Then when Magneto literally threatens to being a building down on us and mobilizes the entire brotherhood against us, you hide behind us like a fucking coward and send us to fight them. You sent a child, one that'd barely been with us a few days! I watched Pyro wrap one of us in a fucking flaming snake and if I hadn't the mutations I did, I'd be six feet under with a full fucking clip in my chest!" James shook with the emotions spilling out as he marched them towards the apartment, jaw aching where he spat words from between clenched teeth. "And Harry, the brother of Veil who is the only reason I bother to tolerate you, was nearly paralyzed. It took Sapphire, Luna, and me to make sure he could still stand and here you are, head up your fucking ass like always and going on about how you can't get hour god damned dick wet! Where in that equation is there an iota of good? Because I can't fucking see it!"

Voltus Glade is in the far northern end of the island, away from most other major structures. It is a natural clearing on a cliff, surrounded by trees on all side except for the cliff side, giving spectacular views. On the ground in this clearing is a large circular base, with smaller circles carved into it with strange runes unlike any Max had ever seen before. Max will see that there are 10 of these runes. In the middle of the circle, where there are no runes, is Selene. Nine other mutants are standing on the circular rune spots, leaving one spot open.

Max walked through the dense trees, finally seeing his first glimpse of the Voltus Glade breaking through the leaves. His steps stopped briefly as he crossed the threshold between the treeline and open clearing. The sheen of the runes looked magical in the moonlight, making the empty one much more inviting. He quickly scanned the faces of the other mutants there, seeing them standing on a rune each before finally looking towards Selene. A part of him was weary, apprehensive, but mostly he was lured in the mystery of it all, and by what he could learn. So, Max took his first step into the clear open space, walking straight towards the empty rune and standing in its center. He didn't say anything, unsure of what even to day. Hi, I'm Max and I'm a magic user?

"I see we have a newcomer to our circle," Selene greeted softly. She looked somewhat luminous, as if she were faintly glowing in the moonlight. In her left hand, she was holding a dusty old tome - a grimoire that was positively ancient. The other mutants in the circle looked at Max somewhat curiously - standing next to him was an elvish looking girl with a shock of pink hair. "Would you care to introduce yourself to the coven?"

"Sorry, didn't want to interrupt anything." Max let out softly as he rubbed the back of his neck. He shifted his weight from one hip to the other, looking at the 'coven' before him. Somehow that word sat ill with him, but he wasn't sure why. Was Stranges place also a Coven? Did he have another name for it? Was Rune part of one? He realized he was still silent, having not introduced himself yet. "Uh. Hi? Names Maximillian, most call me Max, I have magic but its...unpredictable, chaotic even. But I know I can get control, eventually. I've seen it, a future in which I could do things that seem more like fantasy than reality. And I've done things to that effect too." Max had no idea what it was he was supposed to say, or how much was too much to say. But it all just flowed out of him as soon as he begun to speak, finally cutting himself off and looking about to gauge the others reactions and faces.

"You aren't interrupting anything at all - just a simple centering of ourselves under Luna's light," Selene explained softly with a smile. "Would you say that you are just beginning your path, then?"

"Hi, I'm new too to all of this - my name's Pixie," the elvish looking girl with pink hair whispered, positively beaming at Max as she held out a hand. The wings on her back fluttered somewhat excitedly. "It's so totally cool what you all did for Genosha."

Max took the elvish girls hand, giving her a small shake as his free hand made its way towards the nape of his neck once more. "To be quite honest I'm still not entirely certain what all we did. Though I'm sure missing months of time can do that to someone." He turned his attention back towards Selene before looking down at his feet and shuffling a bit more towards the center of his rune. "I think that's a fair thing to say. I've learned a lot from quite a few people, but I know there's still more to experience and learn. Like centering under Luna? What exactly does that do? How does it work? What benefits does it hold for the caster? And is Luna a god or just the name given?" There was still so much he didn't know about this group or their magic habits. He wondered if it would be rude to ask them all for a quick explanation and demonstration of their powers.

"Luna's the moon goddess," Pixie started explaining quickly. "The moon makes our magic stronger, so the more moonlight you soak up, the better your spells. And different phases of the moon are good for different things, like the New Moon is really good for rituals and spells having to do with fresh starts and new beginnings."

"Perfectly said, Pixie. When we center ourselves, our energy is stabilized - balanced. And centering under Luna does not only focus our powers... but enhances them. I am guessing, given your chaotic spellwork in the past, you have never attempted to center before. You ought to practice meditation, Maximillian."

"I feel like I should've brought my notebook." Max joked towards Pixie with a bit of a chuckle. "Didn't really have a name for it besides meditation. Usually do it right before I'm about to try something massive and stupid. Helps to focus my thoughts into what I'm attempting to create before I create it. That and well...nevermind." Max wasn't sure if it was wise to mention the voice he heard at times in the beginning. The one who told him words of power that he could speak to make his magic happen. It made sense that if they believed in Luna perhaps there were others they believed in. But he wasn't sure if he was ready for that kind of commitment and knowledge. He pulled off the yellow hood from his robes to better reveal his face, letting the moonlight touch his skin to see if he felt any different. "So how does this all work? How close did Wizards of the Coast get?"

"I'm not familiar," Selene said, tilting her head and her eyebrows furrowing ever so slightly.

"I think he's talking about Dungeons and Dragons," another member of the circle chimed in.

"Ooo, I've always wanted to play!" Pixie gushed. "Do you think you could teach me? Maybe after this is over, we could play a game? Do we need a lot of pieces for it?"

"... At any rate, mutants are unique when it comes to magical abilities. Whereas humans typically need to make deals with other entities in exchange for power or draw on other dimensions, mutants are beholden only to ourselves. We are magic. Any mutant on this island is capable of wielding magic, although some of you are more suited to it than others. Your third eye is wide open, whereas for others it is closed. We can combine our powers through ritual to cast spells or stand alone."

Max's attention was briefly turned towards the other mage that knew about Dungeons and Dragons, followed by Pixies excitement over the notion of being able to play it. He wasn't sure how fun a game of D&D would be with people who actually knew magic, potentially arguing over how that isn't how it works or looking for ways to homebrew they're own powers into the game. Then again using magic to create a vast AR system where they played as the characters could be fun. His thoughts were cut short as Selene began to speak again. Explaining further how it all worked, Max's hand twitching a bit with an itch to contact Strange and ask him if his magic was inate or if he made a pact? He didn't seem like the kind however, but he also wasn't currently present it seemed.

There was a part that stuck with him however. Or draw in other dimensions. He thought back to the voice he first heard when his powers began to manifest. Making him wonder if he was even truly a mutant, or just a human who had unknowingly tapped into another dimension and garnered powers from another realm. "Right. So...what do we do here? Exactly? I'd love to get to know all of you and what you're all capable of."

"Our circle is a place of learning and teaching," Selene answered. "We meet at the witching hour to center ourselves and then practice and hone our magical skills as a unit. As for getting to know each other better... That actually matches up perfectly with a ritual I have been tinkering with. Of course, it requires the explicit consent of each member of the circle. It's a gentle sort of magic, a slight meeting of minds - where everyone becomes a small part of everyone else for a few minutes, where it's hard to tell where you begin and the next person ends."

---

It's towards the end of the night, Echo's at the tiki bar, Veil is off doing something with Spark Plug, the others aren't really around at the moment. Echo will feel a sharp pressure in his head. Everyone becomes motionless. This is then followed by the voice of a young man - Help! And then, everything is back to normal. People are moving and talking like nothing had happened at all. As if Echo had imagined the entire thing.

Echo sat alone at the bar, watching as the others went about their things for the evening. Some splintering off to go mingle with others while others simply went to go do other things or be alone. He looked at his sister talking to Soark Olug at a distance, holding his drink in hand and taking a sip before gripping the cup tightly. He placed the cup onto the counter, reaching up to massage his temples when a sudden pain overcame him. He closed his eyes briefly, opening them up only to see the world frozen in time. Everyone was motionless as Harry's eyes darted from side to side, shooting wide open as he heard a cry for help in the back of his head. Just as soon as the voice finished everyone began to move and talk once again as if nothing had even happened. Harry looked at his drink on the counter, stood from his chair, and made his way out of the Tiki Bar. "I...Who are you? How can I help?" He thought to himself, wondering if the voice could hear him.

Outside of the Tiki Bar, a few mutants were loitering and chatting - they looked like college aged kids, ripe with hormones and a lack of parental supervision. They weren't looking at Echo or paying any attention to him, just laughing and talking about a ghost story. Supposedly, from what Echo would be able to catch, Genosha was haunted by an ancient demon called the Patchwork Man. The Patchwork Man made people do things they wouldn't otherwise, turning you into a demon, a shadow of your former self.

One of the kids stopped suddenly, their eyes turning bright blue as they turned and stared at Echo. "Free me," the kid said.

The glow then appeared in another person's eyes. "He's going to kill me."

There was an odd sense of normality in being in a place that had local legends. He'd heard so many growing up that it was almost comforting. He'd tried to act casual as he waited for a response, only to have it come from one of the kids outside, and then another. Harry was beginning to get a little creeped out. He took a step back, away from the kids, before he reminded himself someone needed his help. Someone just said their life was in danger. He took two steps forward, looking at the last kid who spoke with a stern and concerned look."Who's going to kill you? Where are you? How can I help?" He felt as if he was out of his mind. A part of him wondering if this is how Casper felt all of the time. But he knew what he saw, and his heart was already starting to quicken.

The kid startled, seemingly completely back to normal. Aside from the fact that he had a third eye in the middle of his head, he could've been just an ordinary college student, probably with gripes and complaints about their professors and midterms and the upcoming football games. He wasn't wearing a costume or anything like that, just normal, ordinary clothes. "Wh-what? Someone's going to kill me?!" he asked, all three eyes widening.

A rabbit burst into view and then went off at a run.

Harry watched as the rabbit burst past them, taking a half step towards ita before halting for a brief moment to turn and look at the kids. For a split second it appeared as if he had two heads, before finally another him fully emerged and Harry went bounding off to chase the rabbit while Barry stayed behind. "Sorry didn't mean to scare you, just a game of telepathic tag is all but I seemed to of missed them by a second. Anyways I've got a rabbit to follow before I lose this game." Barry explained, hoping the kids would just think it's some new mutant game. He went running after Harry, the bright clothing much easier to spot than a single rabbit, as he tried to catch up to him while Harry continued the chase. "I really hope that I'm supposed to be following you because if not then I'm just wasting more time."

The rabbit was leading Harry further and further, until vanishing into a hole in the ground outside of a gigantic building in the middle of the island, one they had passed by the previous day - Hellfire Manor. The hole seemed to grow by itself, until it was large enough for a mutant to slip on through, as if beckoning Echo down.

Harry's pace slowed down as he saw the building starting to come into view. Whatever this was, it couldn't be good news. Someone, a telepath, was screaming for help and it was coming from beneath the Hellfire Manor. He was about to consider his luck gone as the rabbit disappeared beneath the building, cursing that he didn't have a mutation to help him follow suit, until finally the hole began to widen and make room for him to follow. "Oh Harry, what have you gotten yourself into?" He looked around left and right to make sure no one else could see him, then looked towards Barry. "Ok, keep watch and if you hear me scream from down there then go get Veil and the others." Harry took a breath before crawling down into the hole, searching for the rabbit as he followed the tunnel down, wondering what he was doing.

The tunnel turned from earthen to steel relatively quickly. With the emphasis on organic engineering on Krakoa, the tunnel was likely built by the man obsessed with metal - Magneto. The tunnel was incredibly cramped, barely big enough for Echo - and the reason why became apparent quickly. It wasn't really a tunnel - it was a vent that he was crawling through. At the end of the vent, Echo would be able to see down into a sterile looking room. The room was void of furniture or anything of interest, aside from what looked like a gigantic egg shaped pod - almost like an alien craft.

---

---

Earlier in the day, all of the young mutants from the Mutant Underground had gone to check out the Akademos. Sunshine had given them the tour, showing a bizarre beehive shaped structure filled with all sorts of environments - some traditional lab classrooms, a library, a greenhouse... But above all, there were training spaces of all different types. For example, there was an olympic size swimming pool for practicing water based mutations, as well as what looked like a bomb shelter for more explosive powers. Andy and Zarina had had to leave to have tea at the House of M, and the rest of the group was currently enjoying a quick lunch outside on a grassy field with white markings for some sort of sport.

"M-Ball is going to start up in a few minutes if you all wanna play," Sunshine brought up, talking despite having a mouth full of sandwich.

Kristina sat down and leaned back slightly as she started to open up her sandwich while looking over at the building so far it was a really cool and interesting place in her opinion. Imagining herself spending sometime here training and using her powers a lot more and freely then she could back home without some people like the Purifiers seeing her using her powers. She turned her attention towards Sunshine mentioning a game called M-Ball. "Whats M-Ball exactly and how do you play?" She asked taking a bite out of her sandwich.

Waverley sat cross-legged on the grass, popping the last bite of her own sandwich into her mouth. She'd polished it off rather quickly, which was rather unusual for the girl whose appetite was usually in a perpetual battle with her nerves. She looked over to Sunshine, furrowing her eyebrows, waiting until she'd swallowed to speak.

"M-Ball? That wouldn't happen to be, like, mutant foosball, would it? I'm pretty good at foosball," she replied, though if she were being honest 'pretty good' just meant better than she was at any other sports she'd tried.

"... I guess it's kinda like foosball," Sunshine said hesitantly, thinking on how best to explain it. "There's a ball and everyone's on two teams. At either end of the field is the goal. You want to score the most points that you can. What makes it lit as fuck though is that you can use your powers - just no maiming or killing."

Kristina thought for a moment as she took another bite out of her sandwich looking over at Sunshine as she started to explain the game a little bit, which actually sounded like a lot of fun to her. "I'd totally be down for that, I think it would be a lot of fun." She said finishing up the rest of her sandwich.

"Uh..." Waverley responded with some hesitancy, unsure of this M-ball sport. It sounded a bit...chaotic. She was quiet for a few seconds, before letting out a breath and giving a slight shrug. "Sure, what the hell? Can't be anymore dangerous than some of the stuff we've taken on as MU members, like literal terrorists or improvised hygiene," she finally answered, a small smile stretching across her lips.

Sunshine smirked devilishly, stuffing the rest of her food in her face before getting up, dusting off her knees. "Great. Loser's a fucking flatscan," she told them, before running off in the direction of the M-Ball court. When she got there, a pink skinned girl with what looked like bone spikes protruding from her body gave Sunshine a kiss. Sunshine blushed slightly, before motioning for Kris and Waverley to catch up. M-Ball was about to start after all.

Kristina started to stand up looking over towards Waverly for a moment before quickly bolted off towards the M-Ball Court, quickly catching up to Sunshine at the court seeing a pink skinned girl with bones coming out of her skin. Seeing the girl kissing Sunshine and seeing her blushing a bit she instantly came to the conclusion that it was Marrow the girl that Sunshine mentioned being her fiancé. "So are you going to introduce us?" Kristina said jokingly.

"You must be the fiancé!" Waverley said excitedly, not waiting for Sunshine to do the honors as she held out a hand for the bone woman to shake. "I'm Waverley Watts, Sunshine's roommate. Well, ex-roommate. I'd give the whole protective 'if you break her heart I'll break your legs' speech, but you kinda look like you could beat me up, so...welcome to the family!" Her voice was filled to the brim with enough excitement to convey that she wasn't at all serious in her implied threat, simply ecstatic to meet the mysterious Marrow.

"You're bubblier than Sun described," Marrow said, her voice a little deeper than what would be expected from such a petite frame. She smirked ever so slightly. "And... I don't know anything at all about you. Are you..." Marrow paused, trying to think through all of the names, "Veil, right? The Canadian?"

"Yes, that's Veil," Sunshine said with a snicker.

"Oh yeah i'm totally from Canada." Kristina said with a slight laugh and shook her head slightly as she extended her hand towards Marrow "I'm Stareyes, or Kristina whichever you'd prefer to call me totally doesn't matter to me. I was more or less new to the group really before being frozen again." She said introducing herself to Sunshine's fiancé.

Waverley let her hand drop, seemingly undeterred by her handshake being ignored. She made no comment on Marrow’s mistaking her mix of nerves and temporary excitement for bubliness; time would correct her. She looked down to the strange court they stood upon, giving the ground an absentminded kick.

”So, Sunshine said something about M-ball? Is this, like, the field?” she asked, her gaze turning from the group to instead scan the court.

Marrow nodded. "Right. Stareyes and Watts," she repeated, committing the names to memory. "And yeah, this is the place. Are you all joining us?" Marrow asked.

"They ought to be," Sunshine chimed in. "The other team's here," she then noted, seeing about four other mutants taking the other side of the field. "You two in or what?"

Kristina looked at Waverly for a moment asking if this was the field that they will be playing on and shook her head slightly, before turning her attention towards the other group of mutants about four of them on the other side of the field. "Of course i'm still in of course." She said to the two of them.

Waverley glanced over to the other side of the field, seeing the mutants they'd be playing against in this strange new game. She rubbed her hands together as if to get ready for the carnage likely to come, before looking back over to Sunshine, and giving a firm, certain nod.

"Yeah, definitely. I mean, it wouldn't be fair to leave the teams uneven. So let's do this," she agreed, awkwardly bending her knees and entering something akin to a battle stance. She looked over to the goal, then back to Sunshine and Marrow. "Er, do we need a goalie or something?"

"Nope!" Marrow shouted, as the game commenced. Marrow met with the other team's captain - a young boy with a body made entirely out of water - as a ball was tossed up into the air by Rain-Boy. Marrow jumped up, spearing the ball on one of her shoulder spikes, before taking off at a run towards the other side of the field. The other mutants on the opposing team appeared to be a floating brain in a jar (No-Girl), a disfigured purple girl with a lopsided face (Cosmar), and a gigantic jell-o blob looking man whose skeleton was visible to the naked eye (Glob). Rain-Boy sent a blast of water at Marrow, but Marrow dodged the blast. However, she couldn't avoid No-Girl's psychic attack, becoming paralyzed in place.

"Guess you need a hero, huh bae?" Sunshine shouted, going at a run to help her fiancée. She made a swirling ball of disease in her hands and lobbed it at No-Girl, hitting her mark... but as No-Girl was a brain in a floating air-tight jar, Sunshine's powers didn't do much of anything to her. Cosmar then plucked the ball off of Marrow's spike and started making a run for the goal.

Kristina looked over at the four other mutants they all of them had very clear mutations on them, she wondered what their lives were like before coming to Genosha. The game quickly started seeing Marrow grabbing the ball with one of her boney spikes, and Cosmar grabbing the ball shortly after No-Girl had taken her down. Kristina ran forward and focused on the ball in Cosmar's hand and shot out an eyeblast out of Cosmar's hands looking over towards Waverly. "Grab the ball!" Kristina yelled to her.

Waverley was shifting from foot to foot as the game ensued, raising her hands up in front of her in a way that made it look like she was ready for anything. It was a strategy she used to employ in gym class to make it seem like she kind of knew what she was doing when she didn't. Luckily, though, Kris' shout pulled her attention towards the ball lying not too far away from her. Grabbing something and running. That's something she could do...or at least she thought it was something she could do, until she took one forceful step onto the wet ground in front of her, causing her to slip right onto her ass. She let out a groan of pain, but her focus was still on the ball.

She didn't have time to get up and continue running, and she wasn't entirely sure what counted as maiming when it camem to a floating brain, a goo man, and water, so she figured support was the best she could do. She rose her feet and stomped them onto the ground, grabbing hold of the sound made with her mind, amplifying it, and blasting it at the ball. It popped up into the air, arcing towards Sunshine.

"Sunshine!" Waverley called out from the ground, hoping her teammate would notice it coming her way.

"I'm busy!" Sunshine complained, but she managed to jump up and catch the ball anyways. She gave a sympathetic look to Marrow, but she knew what her fiancée would've said if No Girl hadn't been holding her brain hostage - win first, help second. Marrow had a vicious competitive streak, one of the qualities Sunshine adored in her. Unlike those from the Mutant Underground, Marrow didn't worship heroics. Sunshine took off at a run towards the goal, dodging a blast of water from Rain-Boy. However, Cosmar hit Sunshine with a reality altering ray, distorting Sunshine into some sort of weird looking blob - like the scene in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy where the crew is changing constantly while waiting for normality to be restored.

"Isn't that maiming?" Glob asked, jogging on over to Sunshine and carefully grabbing the ball.

"No, there's no blood!" Cosmar argued.

---

---

Jack still had a bit of a mystery that he had been trying to solve all on his own. What was that mystery? How the hell was he still living. While the others had been deciding to figure out how best to get used to being on Genosha or how everything worked, he had still been trying to figure things out on his own. Unfortunately, he was starting to realize that he couldn't exactly find the answers all on his own, despite his attempts. So he was heading for the Tiki Bar, to see if he could find a few people. The main thing was, he didn't want a whole lot of people to be involved, so maybe one or two would be fine, just not a large group. You couldn't really do any investigating in a large group after all anyway. Eventually, he found Callie and Veil at the bar, and walked up to them, "I need your help with a mystery, one that I'd prefer to not have too many people involved in..." he explained simply to the pair, looking at them, and he didn't really wait for an answer before explaining more. "I need your help figuring out how come I'm not dead... Since I should have been seriously injured at the least, but when I woke up, I didn't end up in the hospital like everyone else, and others clearly know what happened, but they aren't saying anything and I've been trying to uncover things myself, but it isn't exactly easy..."

Callie had decided to go to the Tiki Bar that was suggested with Veil, leaning herself up against the bar with a beer in hand she leaned back turning to look at everyone else in the bar, when Jack approached them. Callie took a sip of her beer before setting the glass down listening to Jack as he explained. She didn't really know how Jack's powers worked other than that he could easily stretch and change his appearance as wel to. She wasn't sure why he wanted all of this secrecy either but it would be a good chance to learn more about this place as well to, looking over at Veil for a moment. "I wouldn't mind helping out, maybe we should search around the hospital records or something?" Callie suggested it was probably the best place to start.

Veil was sipping a virgin pina colada - she didn't feel comfortable with the idea of being intoxicated here yet, despite being the one to point out to her twin that maybe it was time for them to move on. There was something sinister lurking underneath all of the happiness and bliss, something she couldn't identify but still warranted that she keep her guard up. Hearing Jack's request though made her think that maybe this was it - maybe Jack's mystery was why she couldn't relax on Genosha just yet. And once it was solved, all the secrets would be out in the open - and she could truly enjoy this new mutant homeland where they were free from violence and persecution. "I'm guessing you didn't ask anyone what happened to you," Veil surmised, putting down her drink. "Course we'll help. That's what family's for."

He was fairly glad that they decided to help him out, even though he didn't even really give them a full explanation as to why he was keeping quiet about everything. Callie suggesting that they look at the hospital records caused him to shrug slightly. "Maybe, though I swear just about everyone has been trying to stop me from finding anything... But that's at least worth a try too start off with."

Callie thought that it was really weird that the people here were preventing Jack from finding out about what happened to him. She quickly finished drinking her beer setting the glass down before standing up patting Jack on the shoulder. "We'll figure it out together." Callie said looking at Veil, for a moment her abilities would be able to help them sneak in and do a bit of snooping in there. "I'm ready to head out if you guys are."

"There are a lot of telepaths here, it's too bad... it's too bad Glimpse isn't around," Veil commented, setting her drink down unfinished. She fluffed out her hair and stood up, figuring that she would make them invisible once they weren't in the middle of the bar. Someone was bound to notice them vanish from sight here.

"Yeah," Jack said simply with a bit of a shrug, before leading the way out of the bar. Things were going to get interesting, that was for sure. He wasn't too sure how things would work out with this little mystery of his. The thing he was glad for was that Veil and Callie agreed to go with him. This would make things a lot easier hopefully.

Callie started to followed Jack out of the bar. "So, what have you been doing for the last few months anyway?" Callie decided to ask making some small talk along the way as well to.

Veil didn't know what to say, since Callie was clearly more or less talking to Jack, so she followed along with them quietly. "Did you ever try to leave the island?"

"...I haven't been doing a whole lot actually, just trying to get a few things sorted out in my brain... Enjoying the piece and quiet that comes with not having Casper around... As for whether or not I tried to leave... Well I thought about it... Thought about it a lot actually, since if I'm being honest something is seriously off about this place, at least with the way my brain has been thinking... They hide behind secrets even though they are supposed to try building trust with people who don't typically trust them... There is something really weird going on but I don't know... They really like to guard their secrets rather closely... Hence why it's taken me a little while to figure this out, plus didn't exactly have help, Sunshine hates me and James kind of was at the time not too thrilled with me for whatever reason, so I kind of didn't have anyone to potentially help me out to figure this stuff out sooner..." Jack said a lot of what was on his mind. The others hadn't know about his weird "how am I alive" situation until Sapphire's ghost said something. That's mainly because he didn't tend to share everything with people. Havok had been right, he didn't know the group too well, there were only two reasons why he ended up with the Underground, one was certainly less tragic than the other. The first obviously being that Colossus wanted to ask for help with something, and that's the only reason he had any sort of connection to the group. The other thing that chased him into the Underground was when the Purfiers attacked the Morlocks and tried to destroy them all, and took out a decent amount of them. If things bugged him, he just preferred not to really mention it at all.

Callie couldn't help but agree with Jack there was really something off about this island at least in her opinion since the place was ran mainly by the Hellfire Club. She didn't really see any of the X-Men there either which was really weird, not that she really cared for Professor X's group of heroes really. "Hopefully there isn't anything really sinister happening here, but I do agree that there's something really off about this place in my opinion." Callie said.

Veil didn't know whether or not she agreed with Callie and Jack has to there being something sinister in Genosha. The only irregularity she had found was Jack's lack of access to information about his own health. She wasn't sure whether that was something to do with the Quiet Council - or just from the fact that Jack's father was Mister Sinister and his mother was an ex-flame of Professor X. James and Sunshine both seemed to have flourished here. And the Hellfire Club could've easily let them die rather than spend all of that time and energy bringing them back. "Do you know if it's Genosha or not just you?" Veil asked Jack. "Your parents both seem shady."

Hearing what Veil said, he did know that was a question he asked himself constantly since he ended up in Genosha. Was there something wrong with him? He hadn't been able to really accept much of anything, it was weird sort of thing in the back of his brain. "...In all honesty? No, I don't know... Hell I've asked myself if there was something wrong with me for the past several months at this point, so that is also a possible explanation to everything, I don't know, and it bugs me that I don't know."

"Well maybe we can find something in the hospital when we do get there they could have test results and whatnot in there to. If the records are clean then you should be fine hopefully." Callie said shrugging slightly looking over at Veil. "What are your thoughts on this place anyway?" Callie asked her friend wondering what she thought of Genosha.

"I don't think I've seen enough to have a full opinion," Veil admitted. "But from what I have seen... Mutants are safe here. Kids are growing up not learning to be afraid. Even with the Hellfire Club having put it together... there's some good here."

"I mean, that is true... Though them keeping secrets isn't exactly all in good faith or whatever is it? I want to trust everything, I really do, but just not exactly really easy at times for me when the one thing I'm curious about everyone just decides to shut up about it." He glanced over at the building as they walked up to be near the hospital now.

Callie nodded slightly as she continued to follow her friends stuffing her hands into her pockets while looking between Veil and Jack. "I do agree that people seem to be really happy and at peace here. I just don't really trust the people in charge of this place though." Callie said shrugging slightly seeing that they were getting closer now. "So, how do you guys want to play this, just go in and once we are in the records we go invisible or, just sneak in right in?" Callie asked Veil and Jack.

"Have you ever tried just asking for the records here? If you haven't, maybe an honest approach. But I also don't mind making us invisible and grabbing them," Veil said with a shrug, looking at Jack - this was his mission more or less.

"Believe it or not I did try that, several times actually. They shut me down over it every time... We're better off sneaking in to get to them," Jack said looking at the building.

"Alright then stealth it is, do you know where they would be kept, also whats the security here like?" Callie asked looking over at Jack since he had been here the longest out of all of them.

Veil nodded, before focusing for a moment - it didn't take as much effort as it once did, to turn a group of people invisible. She had a lot of practice at cloaking thanks to the Mutant Underground and in a matter of seconds, the three of them vanished from view. "Can you lead the way?" Veil asked Jack, also interested in the response as to the security at the hospital.

"There's a medical record room a few floors up, it doesn't have a whole lot of stuff in it yet, so odds are we should be able to find what we're looking for... As for the security involved, there is a telepath, but that shouldn't be a problem," he explained with a shrug. Of course, there was a telepath playing security guard, and since Veil's invisibility didn't exactly protect against telepaths. He wasn't going to mention it, just deciding to try and use his own telepathic powers and use them to protect the three of them. It took a few tries, but he managed to pull it off, before he lead the way inside towards the area they needed to go.

Callie watched as Veil made the three of them invisible and started to walk forward a little bit, surprised that there was just one telepath it seems, though they were ones you don't want to mess with. But just one seemed to be pretty easy to deal with then, usually hospitals she had gone to had more security staff. "Seems like an easy smash and grab then, lead the way, we probably should take the stairs as well to."

Veil raised an eyebrow. "How are we getting through the telepathic security? We don't have Glimpse with us," she asked Jack. "Did you get your hands on psychic dampeners?" she followed up. She knew that such things existed. A lot of human politicians tended to have them on hand, just in case a rogue psychic tried to overthrow the government.

"I guess you could say that," he said rather vaguely, heading for the stairs, "We need to just go up 2 floors and we'll be there." He didn't really want to explain everything as to how he knew that they didn't have to deal with the telepath. That was a can of worms he did not want to open up. Eventually though, after going up a few floors, they'd find the room that they were looking for. After making sure no one was coming or inside of the room, he opened the door, allowing the other two to walk in ahead of him.

Callie followed behind Jack and into the room, she headed over towards one of the various filing cabinets within the room, as she skimmed through some of the files she managed to find one with Jack's name on it. Putting it onto a nearby desk and opened it, seeing a death certificate on it, and the physician's account on the body being shattered. Taking a moment and looked over at Jack wondering what was actually going on before waving the two of them over. "Hey guys I think I may have found something."

Veil frowned ever so slightly, uncomfortable with Jack's lack of explanation. She didn't press him further on it, instead maintaining their cloak of invisibility as they ascended the hospital floors. There was something strange going on here beyond his lack of access to his records - something that sent a chill down her spine. She wasn't a particularly religious person, but had she been, she might have felt it was something unnatural - perhaps even unholy. But the feeling passed as quickly as it had come. They had made it into the records room and Spark Plug produced a file really quickly. Veil walked on over and peered at the file, her eyebrows shooting up from the documents she saw. "A death certificate..." she muttered, questioningly.

He was silent for the moment, walking into the room after the other two, when Callie found something. Looking over her shoulder, what he saw gave him a hell of a lot more questions than answers. "Ok, now I'm seriously confused. Since clearly I'm not dead if I'm standing right here. So what the hell?"

Callie looked at Jack, she really didn't know or have any of the answers sadly, and he most likely had a lot more questions now. "I have no idea what any of that means." Callie said as she handed Jack the file, and started to look for any other files related to Jack. She managed to find one of his mothers, and opened it seeing what was on it seeing that his mother has early stage lung cancer. She decided to not say anything about it and handed it towards Jack. "You should maybe read that privately." Callie told him.

---

---

---

---

Renegade was exhausted and looking forward to having a fun trip to the Tiki Bar with her bestie. She loved her granddaughter dearly, but Flower Child was a handful. Somehow, she had more energy than all of Renegade's children combined, which was saying something, as she had assumed that no child could've been more hyperactive than Casper had been. Clearly, Flower Child had been more than happy to prove her wrong. She also hadn't listened to Renegade's advice on waiting for a bit to take a mutant name, to make sure it was one she really liked, but Renegade couldn't fault her too much for that. Lavinia was a bit of a mouthful.

"Oi, 'Randa, where are ya?" Renegade shouted. She had let herself into the massive House of M and her voice echoed through the halls. It was a grand and luxurious palace, filled with metal sculptures that Magneto had crafted. One depicted all of his children - even those who no longer spoke to him. Renegade couldn't help but observe how the Scarlet Witch was placed in the center, with Quicksilver and Polaris and the rest behind her. "Miiiiiiiraaaaaandaaaaaa," Renegade called out in a sing-song voice. "Moneta?" she then tried, before making her way to Miranda's lab to check for her there.

Renegade found Miranda floating a few inches in the air, her eyes bright purple, and the air pulsing with energy. "Merde..." Renegade cursed. "Magnus, you 'round?" she called out. There was no answer. And Renegade doubted that Miranda would want the Frost Triplets doing any sort of psychic rescue on her - however, before she could even leave to get help from someone she trusted, purple energy shot out from Miranda, hitting Renegade in the face. Renegade's blue eyes turned purple to match Miranda's and the next thing she knew, she was somewhere else entirely.

The world would end up with Ellie somewhere on the streets of Seattle, the clue being that the Space Needle was far off in the distance. It was rather dark, and raining, not to mention she'd hear what sounded like a baby crying nearby. She'd eventually find Miranda, who looked a lot younger now, sitting underneath an awning of sorts that was protecting her from the weather. She was holding a baby in her arms and rocking the child gently, but no matter what she did the baby kept crying. "Shhhh... It's okay..." she said rather softly, as she covered up the kid to protect them from the cold.

Renegade looked much younger - over a decade younger in fact. She was surprised, looking at her hands and seeing the lack of wrinkles. Her left eye no longer had a scar covering it. She was confused at first as to what had happened, but then she remembered walking up to Miranda and seeing her in some sort of weird trance. "Oi, Miranda, snap out of it," Renegade said, walking up and crouching down next to her friend. "Aww, cute bébé. What's his name?" she then couldn't help but ask.

She seemed a bit surprised to see Ellie there, "Ellie? What are you doing here?" she asked, before looking back at the crying baby in her arms, "His name? Oh I've never been very good at naming anything... But it's Fredrick... My little Freddie..."

Renegade made a face. "Frederick? Vraiment? He's a baby, not an old man," she complained.

"I'm not good at naming anything I told you that so sorry..." she muttered, looking away from her now.

"Clearly," Renegade said, shaking her head slightly. "Ya know that this ain't real, right?" she reminded her friend. "Think we're trapped inside ya head or something, it's surprisingly less fucked up than I had anticipated."

"What are you talking about? This is real. This is very very real."

Renegade shook her head. "It ain't, ma cherie. We're on Genosha, we ain't in Seattle. And your babe, he ain't so little anymore - he's a man by now."

"No, you're lying!"

"What reason would ah have ta lie?" Renegade asked, getting upset and her thick cajun accent was becoming more and more prominent. It had softened up over the years, but when she was feeling emotional sometimes it would be like she had never left New Orleans.

"You're lying..." she muttered again, rocking the baby gently, as he ended up falling asleep at this point, though it looked like she was crying.

"Miranda, ya already lived through this once before. Ya got a boyfriend now and ya live in a palace on a fucking island. Ya're a step maman to a few wonderful kids, kids who got babies of their own now," Renegade said, putting a hand on Miranda's. "Trust me, chère."

"I-I-I can't let Erik know..." she said instantly, looking at Ellie. "H-h-he can't know about him..."

Renegade bit her lip slightly. She hesitated. She knew that this wasn't real - but it seemed to be real to her friend. It couldn't hurt to play along just a little, right? Maybe all Miranda needed was reassurance it was all going to end up okay and then she'd stop. She'd snap out of it and they could discuss this over drinks. God, Renegade was dying for a drink. "He ain't gonna know. Hell, I didn't even know ya had a kid till... more or less now. 'Course, ya mentioned ya daughter and all, but not a son."

"H-h-he doesn't know, he never knew... That's why I left for a while... I didn't want any kid of mine to end up living the life I have..."

"Wait... He ain't... He ain't le père, n'est-ce pas?" Renegade asked, her eyes widening slightly. "He ain't the father?"

"He is the father... That's the problem..." she said quietly. "But if I took Freddie there... He'd end up with the Brotherhood whether he wanted to be with the group or not, and I don't want that..."

"Ain't nothin' wrong with da Brotherhood," Renegade argued reflexively. "... But ah get it. Ah didn't want my boys 'round X after what he did. It ain't the life for a child. Ya gotta do what's best for 'em, if that means takin' 'em to Sephora and beating up bigots in da parkin' lot... or lettin' em go."

"That's why I'm out here, that's why I'm still in Seattle... I'm giving him up in the morning... I just wanted to hold him in my arms one more time, since I know I'll probably never see him again..."

"Ya never know... Ya might," Renegade whispered, seeing the deep pain that Miranda carried - that she still carried. As far as she was aware, any hope she was giving her friend right now would be false. She didn't end up seeing her son again. He was still lost to her.

"The odds of that are slim..."

"Ya ain't gonna always be with Magnus," Renegade said softly. "At some point, ya can choose to walk away and have your kid. But for now, ya're helping to make a better world for mutants everywhere, little cute babies like Frederick."

"If you say so..." she responded sadly, before in a flash of purple light, the scenery changed entirely. Renegade would find herself in a rather large house, and it was incredibly nice, and expensive looking. She'd hear a voice coming from the other room. Once there, she'd see a little girl with brown hair, couldn't be much older than 2 years old, sitting in Miranda's lap as she was reading the little girl a story, "It was a clear cold December day, perhaps a thousand years ago or more, Sir Ector and his two sons, Sir Kay and Arthur, made their way to Camelot..." she was reading softly to the little girl, smiling happily.

Renegade groaned. She really thought she had gotten through to Miranda. She had tried her best to be patient and understanding, to coax her friend along through the memory, but now she was stuck in another one. And a part of her was mad, since it meant that Miranda had lived in a mansion before and was now currently in a palace. Renegade's apartment on Genosha wasn't bad, but it was just that - an apartment. And she sure as hell never lived at the X-Mansion even when she had been dating X - the school scene wasn't her style. "Really, Moneta?" Renegade complained.

"Karthur!!" the little girl giggled, combining King and Arthur into a single word. She clapped her hands together slightly.

"That's right Guinnie... King Arthur," she said with a smile, before glancing up at Ellie, "Ellie, what are you doing here? How did you get in?"

The little girl then started grabbing for the book, seizing the opportunity of her mother being distracted. "Ya dragged me here. Remember? The alley in Seattle? Like a minute ago? I just wanna have some vodka, 'Randa. That's all I wanted when I came over to see ya."

"...I haven't been to Seattle for a few years now Ellie..." she said softly, looking sad, before turning her attention back to Guin and gently taking the book out of her hands, "No Guinnie... Mommy gets to hold the book remember?"

"This ain't real, it's just another memory," Renegade insisted. "That kid, she ain't real. Also, who the hell did ya fuck this time to get a place this nice? And why did ya end up leaving them? I woulda put a ring on my own finger so fast it'd make ya head spin if I was you." The little girl had a determined look on her face, trying to yank the book away from her mother. "Mommy busy ghost!" she complained.

"I am so confused... She is very much real..." she said, clearly confused, especially when she heard what Guin said, now incredibly confused. "What do you mean Guinnie? My friend Ellie is right there," she said, pointing towards Ellie and keeping the book out of her reach.

The little girl shook her head, looking at Miranda like she was the craziest or most idiotic person in the world - a sort of resting judgmental face, if you would. "Nooooo," she said sassily. She then tried to get out of her mother's lap to go after the book, very upset at the delay in story time.

"She clearly gets her stubbornness from you," Renegade resigned, before sitting down on the couch. "If I die in here, it'll be your fault Flower Child won't have any family. Ya know Casper won't do shit and Jackie's already bad enough with the kid he has. And let's no mention Davie and Val... Speaking of which, if ya know where Davie is and ya ain't telling me, you're dead to me."

"You make no sense Ellie..." she said, before keeping the book away from Guin even still. "Well maybe I'm talking to my imaginary friend? That is a bit odd isn't it," she added, smiling at Guin.

"This ain't real! Ya gave away your daughter or something, ya didn't raise her!" Renegade snapped. "Ah tried letting ya think through things and just feel with ya son, but it didn't work and this needs to stop. We can't just live in our heads even if the world is shit."

Guin nodded at Miranda. "You have friend waaaay odd," she babbled in agreement.

"It is strange isn't it? Well she's not being very nice... So maybe I should ignore her, what do you think?" she asked before pulling Guin into her arms and starting to tickle her.

The little girl started squealing and giggling. "Stooop! No tickle dragon!!!"

Renegade groaned. "Yup, ah'm going to die in here. Yay."

"I'm going to get you Guinnie!" she said, smiling as she tickled her some more. Ellie would notice that was a bit strange, considering how depressing Miranda tended to get in the real world, especially when she was around and helping kids. Mirandra truly seemed happy here.

The little kid was now giggling so hard she couldn't really protest, even as she squirmed trying to get away from her mother. It was a really cute sight, as irritated as Renegade was to still be trapped inside of someone else's mind. "Why the name Guinnie, anyways?" she asked, figuring she'd try again to engage Miranda in conversation.

"It's a nickname, her father insisted on the name Guinevere," she said calmly, as she kept tickling Guin.

"Ah'm just surprised ya found a name worse than Frederick," Renegade pointed out, making a face.

"It isn't that bad... And I let him choose the name," she said with a shrug before there was the sound of a door off in the distance a little ways. "Listen Guinnie, it sounds like daddy is back..."

"From bar?" the girl asked.

"... Who exactly is the father this time?" Renegade asked. "It ain't Magnus, right?"

"Uh no, it isn't," she commented, as she stood up fully, carrying Guin in her arms.

"Mandy? Where are you?" a voice called out.

"Coming," she responded, exiting the room with Guin in her arms. If Renegade followed, she see a man who looked suspiciously like a younger Tony Stark.

"How's it going?" he asked Miranda, before giving her a kiss, and then taking Guin from her arms and holding her. "And what sort of trouble did the little Penguin get up to while I was gone?"

"Who her? Trouble? No way."

The little girl squealed happily, clearly a total daddy's girl. "Daddyaddyaddyaddy! Mom friend ghost!"

Renegade's jaw dropped. She thought that she had slept around with powerful people herself - Professor X and Mister Sinister for instance - but Miranda may have had her beat, with Magneto and Iron Man. However, it also struck her as a bit stupid. Magneto could easily kill Iron Man with a thought... but then again, he was just Tony Stark now she guessed - she didn't see a glowing hunk of metal in his chest. "What other powerful celebrities have you fucked?"

"What do you mean mom's friend ghost?" he asked, raising an eyebrow a bit.

"Oh it's nothing Tony," she commented with a shrug, ignoring Renegade's question entirely.

"If you say so... Anyway Penguin, what do you want to do?"

"Stwars!" Guin cheered. "Cloud Empire!!"

Renegade sighed slightly, taking a seat and wondering how much longer she was going to be trapped here. She supposed at some point, Magneto would come and find them - or would he just get sucked into all of this as well? It'd also - it then hit her and Renegade pulled a face. Didn't Tony Stark's kid marry Quicksilver - as in, Magneto's son? And if Miranda's other kid was Magneto's son... wasn't that incest adjacent? She shuddered at the thought. So gross.

There was a bit of a sound outside of the house, and Miranda heard it, going over to a nearby window to look outside. "Something wrong Mandy?" Tony asked her.

She didn't respond initially, before what looked like a small explosive device of some sort got tossed in through the window. Her eyes going wide, Miranda created a dome out of her holographic projections that covered it up before it detonated. There was a rather loud boom but thankfully she managed to prevent it from actually causing any damage aside from a blackened spot on the floor. "This is not good."

Guin started crying from the sudden loud explosion nearby, scrunching up her little face as she clung to her father. Renegade, despite never having heard this story from Miranda before, felt that she already knew what was going to happen. "... This is what humans do, Moneta... " she said softly.

"...Get her out of here Tony please..."

"What? You need to come too Mandy!"

"Tony please..."

"Miranda, you can't stay here!" he said, as he ducked for cover somewhat with Guin still in his arms as bullets started firing off into the home. Miranda created a holographic wall, protecting them all from the bullets. She wasn't saying anything, not really right now, her brain was just racing currently. Renegade would be able to see a few of the soldiers or whoever were there had patches on their shoulders, the logo wasn't recognizable to many, but she and Miranda would both recognize it as the organization that they had at least attempted to shut down in the 80s. It had more or less disappeared, but apparently might still be around at least at this point in time, at least the point where the memory seems to be taking place.

Renegade's heart broke for Miranda. Her first child she had given away to protect him from his father - and now her second child was going to be lost to her as well. As far as she was aware, she never did end up reconnecting with either of her children. Seeing the assholes from Experiment X stealing this peace from Miranda made her blood boil - this was why they needed Genosha. It wasn't enough to just want to survive. They had to demand a place to call their own, one far away from all the human bullshit. "He's right - ya can't stay here," Renegade told Miranda. "Ya kids are grown already, Moneta."

"I want to stay..." she muttered, sounding confused now as the images around her started swirling a bit, everything going all fuzzy, everything aside from the two of them was beginning to blur. It was really really weird to see.

Renegade felt like she was going to puke - everything was making her dizzy, as if she had suddenly gone cross eyed. "Ya can't stay, babe. Ya gotta go. Merde, why don't ya just go meet ya kids? They're grown. They can handle it."

"...They wouldn't want anything to do with me, let's be honest..." she said softly, as the images suddenly disappeared and they were all alone in a black void, and now looked like their present day selves. "There's no hiding that fact..."

She shook her head. "Ya don't know that. And even if they don't, they deserve ta know that you're their mother," Renegade pointed out. "Your daughter's an X-Men - we've all seen the tabloids, we know what sorta shit she's gone through with drugs and everything. Maybe her mom is what she needs." Renegade unfortunately knew nothing about what had become of Frederick.

"They are better off without me..."

"Why don't ya let them decide that then?"

"If you say so," she muttered as the world went dark and they'd both wake up back in the House of M once more.

"Oh sweet Jesus, so glad that's over," Renegade said, sighing with relief. "Now ya owe me at least five different drinks, 'Randa, and then we're gonna discuss how you can call your kids. Also, I expect baby pics, since ya've been holding out on me."

"...Apologies for that Ellie... I didn't mean to let that happen... I guess I got lost in my own thoughts..."

Renegade shook her head. "No need, ah get it. Ah've been losing sleep over where Davie's been for months. Can't imagine not knowing if your kids were okay or not for years... It's this island, ain't it? A place where they could've grown up safe with their maman."

"It's just... It hurts to think about it sometimes..."

"Ah know, chère," Renegade said, before pulling her into a hug.

"So, how about we go get a few drinks?"

"Uh, more than a few. Ah was just properly traumatized."

"Whatever you say Ellie..."

---

---

---

---

Zari was a little unsure of this whole thing, based on how other people seemed to react to the name of Magneto or him being around in general. She still wasn't too sure why people seemed to act that way, but if Miranda (who was fairly nice to everyone) was okay with him being around, then why wouldn't she be? She walked up with Andy to the doors (and Mr. Eyeball was floating along next to her) and tried to open the doors, but they were locked. "...Why are the doors locked? We were supposed to be here around this time right? It's what, a minute or two before three... This is annoooooooooyyyyyyyyying."

"Well you're supposed to be here. Maybe he's mad I came too?" Andy shifted uncomfortably. Even though Zari had invited her, and Magneto hadn't specifically said Zari couldn't bring a friend she still felt like she was intruding a bit. Though, it was odd the doors were locked with how much Renegade had given them assurances that the island was safer than safe. Renegade didn't lock her door but Magneto did. His reputation might have a bit to do with it. Maybe he thought someone would still attempt to kill him. Andy thought that would be a very stupid form of suicide.

The door then swung open, revealing Magneto - in a Hawaiian shirt and khaki pants. His helmet was floating next to him, ready to be put on with a moment's notice. "Why would I be angry to have another young mutant come for tea?" Magneto asked. In the distance, they'd hear a teapot begin to boil.

"Hi there!" Zari said happily, Mr. Eyeball more or less was just somewhat beeping next to her. She was glad that he didn't seem to mind that Andy had tagged along.

Andy froze in place a little as the door opened. She wanted to hide, but spoke instead. "Oh, just, you invited Zari and I wasn't certain if I was too. I..." She trailed off. What did she want to say? That she wasn't important? That she was no one. That there would be no reason Magneto would want to talk with her. That she thought she wouldn't be wanted. That she was in the way. She opted for silence.

Magneto's gaze was intense - even though he claimed he didn't have any ill intentions and that this was just friendly, and despite his casual attire, he was still the master of magnetism. His eyes seemed to interrogate and pick apart everything he saw. "If you begin a sentence, young lady, you should finish it," Magneto said sternly. He then turned and started walking further into the palace, leading them to a mini sitting room of sorts where fine china and whatnot had already been placed out - along with a tray of cookies.

Zari instantly followed along after him, without a care in the world, with her robotic eye still tagging along. Though the robot was seemingly beeping a bit, and it would sound almost a little concerned. Probably because he was a little metal robot around someone who could probably rip him apart in seconds. "Mr. Eyeball, you worry too much, you'll be fine!" she said, before she saw everything that was set up. "Oooooh, this is so cool!"

Admonished Andy followed Zari into Magneto's house. She didn't know how she would finished the sentence if Magneto asked her to, for now she decided to keep silent and try to not draw more attention to herself. How was Zari so worry-free? Andy didn't get it. Andy looked around the room he led them into. She hadn't ever been in a room this nice before. If she hadn't already felt out of place this would have made her feel that way. She quirked a smile at Zari reassuring Mr. Eyeball, and wondered if he had similar feelings to her own.

Magneto took a seat, gesturing for Zarina and Andy to do the same. "What do you think of our fair island?" Magneto asked. "And please, do help yourself to some tea - and cookies."

Zari instantly sat down, Mr. Eyeball floating next to her, "I like it here, it definitely is different than what I'm used to." That was true, everything was a bit strange, but then again, many people would consider the place she was from as strange, so she supposed she wasn't really one to talk.

"It seems nice." Andy said taking a seat. She poured herself a cup of tea and picked up a cookie. "Though I wish I had known about it in December." Her heart ached thinking of her adoptive parents. Her mom might still be alive. She didn't know if her dad would have been allowed, and there was no way Ash would have come here without her husband.

Magneto nodded, resonating more with Andy's response than Zarina's. "I understand, child. There are many people who I wish could be safe on Genosha... My wife... My children... But we must look forward to our future and not back at our past."

"You can't always look at the past... The future is out there, just waiting to be seen," Zari said a bit cryptically with a shrug. Of course, she technically was a time traveler, but she also was a reality jumper, meaning she had no idea how the future played out. Well, kind of only up until her parents jumped back to their own home reality. "You can't predict every bad thing that happens, you just have to make do with the hand that you are dealt and figure out what to make with it... This place is different from the life I had before I wound up with the Underground or here. Like really different, but I'm getting used to it, making do with what I've got... Not much really, but I have to make it work..." she commented, Mr. Eyeball beeped a bit at her, and she glanced up at the robot, not really saying anything directly towards it.

Andy smiled a little as Zari talked. The way she spoke made her feel better about stuff. "I agree. I am looking to the future now, but the past brought me here and now. I can't ignore it. I also can't help that my heart longs for..." She trailed off a bit then looked at Magneto apologetically. "Longs for the family that was taken from me." She finished, glancing back at Zari. Andy drank a sip of the tea. She wasn't much of a tea drinker, preferring her caffeine to be in a more concentrated form, but she didn't hate the drink. She thought of Ash and her laugh and how excited she had been when Andy had accepted being adopted by them.

"That is why you must forge your own family. Humans have taken too much from us and we have shed too many tears for one lifetime," Magneto agreed. He had expected to feel a kinship with Valkyrie, having been impressed with her technopathy skills back when he had first met her. He had given her the token as she had only been a child and in some ways, she looked like his first daughter... Anya. Instead though, he felt a deep connection to the Thundering Champion. "It would be my honor to serve as a foundation of your newfound mutant family - the both of you."

Now Zari wasn't entirely sure what to think with regards to that. She had a family, a living one. But... Well, right now she was so far from home that she felt like she was lost and all alone. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad? As long as she was here she might as well right? Who knew how long she'd be stuck around this place trying to solve a prophecy (well, two now) that she didn't really know what it actually met? "That sounds cool! It'd make me happy!" she said gleefully with a smile, her robot was bobbing next to her, and seemed to clearly not be too sure about everything as he beeped a bit. "Mr. Eyeball you are being ridiculous and just plain ruuuuuuude!"

For a moment Andy wasn't certain what to say. This was the Magneto offering to be her family. She tried to think what Ash would say, or Jamie. Neither had given much of an opinion of Magento. Their little family had been in upstate New York. Sure, stuff hit the news, but they just hadn't talked about it. She thought about what her current group of people would think about it. She knew Havok would lose his shit about it, and that gave her a bit of perverse satisfaction. Then it came to Andy why that would piss off Havok. Magento was Polaris' dad, and when she had been kidnapped by Havok he had fought for her. He had shown up and destroyed the thing that had been keeping his daughter. Her heart ached at the idea of having someone fight for her like that, having someone who cared about her enough to fight a dozen people just to save her.

And then Zari was reacting. Andy's heart tightened in hope and Zari said it would make her happy. Her body untensed a bit and she smiled. She didn't want to jump into it without some information, but she was leaning strongly towards them being their own little family. But Andy had had her heart hurt enough times by people claiming to be family. Claiming that they would protect her and then getting rid of her as soon as it was convenient, or she was no longer convenient. She shifted uncomfortable at the thoughts of abandonment. So she said hesitantly, "What would that entail?" Considering how much Sunshine insisted it was different here she wanted to know what that all meant. She needed time to consider it. Being adopted by Ash and Jamie had taken them months to decide they were going to, and she wasn't even legally Andy Drummond after all that. Her name would always be false. Whoever her real parents were they hadn't looked for her, or they were long dead. Whatever her name had been then it had died when she had been fished out of the ocean by the surfers.

Magneto smiled, glad to see that Valkyrie was on board - and he understood Thunder's wariness, respected it even. "Consider yourselves always welcome at the House of M - there are many bedrooms, if you would like to claim one. If not, that is fine too... I only ask that you come to tea once a week and entertain an old man with your stories."

"That sounds like fun!" she giggled a bit. The robot with her clearly though was thinking this was possibly the worst idea ever. Zari was purposefully ignoring the robot, who noticed this and proceeded to sort of bop her on the head. "Mr. Eyeball what the hell are you doing???" she complained, as it just sort of sat there beeping rather loudly at her. "Just stop it, you are overreacting just a little bit don't you think?"

Andy chewed on her lip thinking. It would be very nice to get out from the MU group. They were constantly fighting each other and she really didn't know what to make of them. She'd have to thank Veil at least. She glanced at Mr. Eyeball, he seemed very upset about something. Zari seemed to think he was overreacting though, and if that's what Zari thought it probably was true. She didn't know how to speak the 1's and 0's. Slowly she nodded. "I would be alright with staying here if Zari is. I was only with the other group because there was an incident and we sort of got wrapped up in everything." Magneto didn't seem to be upset at them about their part in the fight. "I've been in a lot of uh...foster homes, they didn't end up well. So it'll take me a bit to be comfortable." She wanted to be honest with him. Didn't want him to think she didn't like him just because she was uncomfortable. The MU group hadn't felt like a family or a home. She hadn't been with them long enough. If she stayed here for good eventually she'd settle in, right?

"Your toy should be muted," Magneto said somewhat sharply. He clearly wasn't a fan of the robot's constant beeping. The ominous and stern expression vanished though as he returned his attention to Andy and her tale of woe. "When I was young, humans took me from my home and separated me from my family - Nazis... I was experimented on, tortured, starved. I could never return home, they made sure of that, burning our apartment to the ground to kill any other Jewish men and women hidden inside... That place was one of three where I had ever been comfortable. The second was with my late wife, Magda, and our daughter Anya... And the third is here."

"He's not a toy... I built him, he's my friend... But also usually he's not so rude or mean or anything," she muttered, twisting her hair slightly. Zari was a little unsure of what else to say, but she was listening in on what Magneto was saying. His life didn't sound the best at all, and now that she thought about it, a lot of the other people who she'd met before had a bad life up until Genosha. Though for her, her life was just more complicated than bad, and she had always just sort of been the sort of oddball around, so she didn't really have too much to say about her own experiences.

Andy flinched a little when Magneto spoke sharply. She couldn't entirely blame him though since Mr. Eyeball was being particularly annoying. Andy's jaw dropped as Magneto told them about his life. She quickly shut it. She had no idea how to respond to what Magento was saying. She had never met anyone who had such a traumatic life, but she understood him a bit more now. "I will try to be more comfortable." She finally said, feeling a bit lame about it. She took a sip of her tea and considered things. Andy wanted to ask a follow-up question, but wasn't certain it would be appropriate. She didn't want to upset Magento so she decided against it, and thought maybe it would be best to change the subject. "Could we get a tour?" She asked. Hoping that would alleviate some of the awkwardness that was there now.

"I see. Then please tell your friend to mind his manners," Magneto told Valkyrie calmly. He wasn't a stranger to mental illness - most of his children had mental health issues. He smiled ever so slightly. "Yes, you may have a tour - once you've finished your tea," he said, ever a practical man as he filled his cup and took a sip.

"I did, more than once. And he doesn't like to listen to me very much either unless I threaten to mess with his circuitry to mess with his personality or something," as soon as the words were out of her mouth the robot beeped a bit more, sounding not too thrilled at that idea, "Then stop being rude and whatever and be nice!"

Andy nodded at Magneto's rule that they had to finish their tea first. She took a sip of her tea and finished her biscuit. She did her best to not look like she was rushing. It was clear, since he had refiled his tea cup, that he didn't want them to rush. "Who all lives here?" She asked. She glanced over at Mr. Eyeball wondering what he was saying that was so rude, but she figured that if Zari wasn't going to translate she probably had a good reason. Andy might ask later when they were alone.

"My girlfriend, Moneta, and my daughter, Polaris," Magneto answered honestly. He had finished his tea and he stood up, looking a bit like a tourist - or even the tour guide - with his Hawaiian shirt and sandals. "Now if you two - er, three - are ready, I believe I owe you a tour of the House of M. I built this place myself, you know."

Zari finished her own tea and then stood up, "Tour sounds like fun. And this place is really really pretty." She meant that, the palace really was beautiful in her mind, and she was unsure really what else to say.

Andy finished off her tea and stood up. "Wow, that's impressive." Andy said. She was impressed she didn't know what kind of skill went into building a house, but it certainly wasn't any she had. "How did you do that?" She asked. And waited for him to start giving them the tour.

"I'm the master of magnetism - all that I needed was a sufficient amount of metal," Magneto boasted. "This wing here is the residential one - my room with Moneta is up ahead on the right, Polaris' is on the left. The next two rooms on the left are permanently held for my other children, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch... Although they have not yet come to visit... but any of the ones on the right you may claim if you wish."

---

---

---

---

---

Please check your inboxes for your individual collabs for Episode Two

These collabs are on 10 day counters, based on this post - once this post hits day 10, your collab needs to have been completed + posted.

Tea Time with Magneto & the Miranda collab are both completed - those ones do not have an additional 10 day counter.

Havok was seeing red. "Polaris has had her mind fucking whammied by Magneto's douchebags before, he brainwashes tons of people to make them join him! If your bitch boyfriend had suddenly upped and gone to join Magneto, you're just going to let him go? You aren't going to fight to get him back?!" Havok shouted. The alcohol pumping through his veins caused his vision to blur slightly and the world was swaying, but he was beyond angry. "I didn't kidnap Polaris, I was helping her! And I never got to have Glimpse check on her mind to make sure that her choice was really her choice! He'd brainwashed and kidnapped her before, and he's an abusive jerk! He cuts people down to build them back up in his own fucked up image! So yeah, fuck me, I'm a dick, but at least I'm good with the choices I made. I'm not in bed with these literal nazis. You can go to hell, James, I'm sure you'll make lots of fast friends there! I'm done!"

Havok then turned and started heading off - heading in the direction of the shore. There wasn't currently very many ways off of the island, but he wasn't thinking straight and he wasn't going to ask Max for help. Casper's blood was pumping quickly. He loved drama, drama gave him energy, but he hated hearing Havok talking to James like that. "Wait, kid Cyclops!" Casper shouted.

Havok turned on his heel, unsteady on his feet. "What?!"

"Eat shit," Casper said, before swinging as hard as he could and punching Havok in the face. Casper's punch was sloppy, his form was weak - he had curled his fingers around his thumb, so when he punched Havok, it hurt Casper almost as much as it hurt Havok. Havok's nose cracked and Casper whimpered in pain, swearing as he shook his hand out. "Oh fuck that hurts! Fuck fuck fuck!" Casper said, hopping slightly.

"What de hell?!" Havok shouted, his voice sounding odd due to the broken nose. "What's wrong wid you?"

"What's wrong with him?! What the fuck's wrong with you?! Do you really not give a single fuck about the consequences of what you did?" James screamed incredulously. It'd taken him a moment to react, caught off guard by Havok's rant. Not at the vitriol or the accusations or the way he spoke about Casper (though James was definitely not pleased with that) but it was the easy way Havok admitted he was okay with the fact people nearly died for his stupidity. James couldn't tell why he was shaking, whether the outrage or the horror was the root, but either way, he charged.

Havok managed to catch the knee sent to his groin but he wasn't fast enough to block James fist and he huffed out a bitter laugh as satisfaction surged in his stomach. He grabbed Havok by the shirt yanking the drunkard close. "First and foremost, I catch you talking about my man like that again, I'm going to tear your tongue out, regrow it, and tear it out again so you can remember to hold your fucking tongue with both hands. James all but spat at Havok. "Secondly, this I'm a dick bullshit sounds a lot like you don't give a fuck that these people you've shared a roof with, shared meals with, shared all this horror and discrimination with put themselves between you and the fucking God damned Brotherhood with Magneto at the helm and they only got out with their lives because Magneto decided we weren't worth killing. Maybe your alcohol addled brain forgot that little detail but we marched out without a fucking hope, Havok! And yet people still ficking did it and you can't be bothered to give a fuck! And thirdly, you aren't a good guy! Have you thought maybe, just maybe, that Polaris decided she didn't want a dick for a boyfriend?!" James pushed Havok away, fury pounding in his ears.

"I get it, you're going through some shit. We've been in the shithole since even before the whole Polaris bullshit and you haven't had a chance to deal with losing her and then you wake up on an island controlled by your enemies after thinking you were going to die only to find out the only one who died is the one who dropped a half assed love confession on you before you could even hear it! You're hurt and overwhelmed and you have every right to be but stop with this self destructive coping crap! You have a whole group of people who put their lives on the line for you without hesitation so stop pushing them away and let them help you! James snarled.

"So now that I've said my piece, I'm giving you three options, dickhead. James counted them on his fingers. "One, you take a swing at me and then I kick your ass up and down this island until you decide to pick a different option. Two, you turn around and walk off and I call someone to let you know you're a danger to yourself and we need to intervene. Three, we go back to the apartment, we get you in bed, I put out water and painkillers for you, and in the morning we tall this through and make a plan to help you!"

Some of Havok's blood had stained James' shirt. Blood was gushing down from his nose, as the injury had only been made worse by James' punch. He had an unhinged look in his eyes - maybe from the alcohol, maybe from James' chilling threat of ripping out his tongue and then causing it to regrow. His pupils looked unnaturally tiny, like in a cartoon when a person lost their mind and their eyes shrunk down dramatically in size.

"I say you go for option one, James is very hot when he's beating people up, and you low key deserve it," Casper commented.

"Casper!" Ben protested. He didn't know why he bothered trying. Casper had the emotional maturity of a baby raccoon. Maybe that was an insult to baby raccoons though.

Havok coughed, spitting up some blood onto the ground. "How about the option where I kick your ass and then you leave me alone so I can get off of this godforsaken island?" Havok suggested. He flexed his chest out forwards, unleashing a red circular blast of his powers. It was weak and pathetic, given his intoxicated and hurt state, but still managed to slam into James and knock him to the ground. Havok fired off another one at Casper, even weaker, but Casper pretty much had the integrity of a noodle and he hit the ground as well, falling on his ass.

James wheezed as the blast caught him unprepared and he found himself on the ground. This really wasn’t the option he’d been hoping for but he supposed if he wasn’t open to it, he shouldn’t have offered. James pushed himself back to his feet, taking a moment to look over Casper and confirm there weren’t any major injuries, and then laughed, unable to take Havok seriously when he looked as beaten and unhinged as he did. “Let me elaborate on the door you’ve opened, Havok. We’re gunna go at it until you give up because I’m going to heal just as fast as you can hurt me. Then, I’m going to pick your ass up, piece you back together, and beat your ass again over and over and over until the alcohol is long gone and you realize just how bad you fucked up.” James sauntered back to Havok, the traces of his laughter fading into a cold expressionless look.

“And while I can’t wait to get to that, I do have a question. Do you care about any of them? About Veil or Sunshine or Callie or Max or Jack or any of the Underground? How about Sapphire or Cayden or Luna?” James demanded, searching Havok’s face for anything other than his usual douchebaggery. “Because I do. I’ve spent day and night keeping water and electricity running, keeping the roof from collapsing over our heads, doing my damndest to keep these people comfortable while they were dying of m-pox. I’ve patch wounds and healed major injuries and for some, I’ve experienced their last moments with them. I’m very attached to this family and up until recently, you were included in that. But people make mistakes. I’m not sure how many make a mistake that would cost all their friends' lives and then make peace with that but let’s move on. So Havok, do you give a shit about any of them?”

"Are you seriously asking me if I care about them?! OF COURSE I FUCKING CARE ABOUT THEM!" Havok screamed. They had attracted a crowd by this point. Patrons from the nearby tiki bar had formed a small ring around them, gawking at the fight between the saviors of Genosha. Not too long ago, they had been chanting and singing their praises - now there were quiet whispers. "I've bleed for them long before YOU came around! I was there before you even knew who Sapphire was! And I seem to be the only person who gives a shit that she DIED! She bled for you, James, and you couldn't do shit to save her! You act like some saint, patching us up, just to send us off to die again. And unless you're in your perfect little circle, you don't care. You never cared about Polaris. You never cared about Sapphire. Hell, if Max poofed himself into a black hole, I think you wouldn't bat an eye!"

Havok thrust his hips, sending another blast of energy off towards James, but James' skin adapted as James turned into solid metal, strong enough to withstand Havok's attack.

James looked at himself and then looked back at Havok, unimpressed. “I just told you I took six rounds to the chest because of your little stunt, Havok. Why do you think that’d do something?” James sighed, feeling the anger receding now that he’d gotten all that off his chest. “My feelings on Sapphire are more complicated than whether or not I liked her. She was an awful person honestly. I tried to like her. She honored the hippocratic oath to a fault but that was about the only redeeming feature I found in her. She drove two people to the Hellfire Club because she treated them like garbage and no one brought their foot down on it. She gave her life to save us, that’s true. I’m thankful and grateful and I always will be but it doesn’t change the fact the way she treated people was terrible. And now she’s gone and any chance of reconciliation is gone with her.” An emptiness spread inside him as the anger receded and he looked around at the assembly with the same unimpressed stare he gave Havok.

“Bleeding for people doesn’t mean you care, Havok. The sacrifice makes you feel strong, empowered, bold but who would ever want to see someone they care about bleed? It’s selfish and shitty but considering everyone seems to have a martyr complex, I’m not surprised you think that’s a healthy way to express it. As for our audicance,” James raised his voice, cocking an eyebrow as he made sure to catch everyone’s attention. “Clearly, we aren’t perfect people. We’ve been through a lot of traumatic situations in a very, very short timeframe and there’s a lot of unresolved issues but we’ll wrap this up and finish this discussion somewhere more appropriate. I’m sorry we bothered you all.” James apologized to the group, turning his attention back to Havok.

“I’m not a saint and despite how I may feel about some people, I’m still always going to try my best to make sure everyone is taken care of and healthy. I’m going to ignore your Max comment because you’re drunk and a dick but frankly, I didn’t know Polaris well enough to have any significant feelings either way about her. It doesn’t change the fact I wouldn’t put a single one of you guys in danger simply to get anyone back. I’m sorry that I blew up on you, especially while you’re like this, and that I didn’t try to get it back under control once it got violent. I’ll leave medicine, food, and water out for you if you decide you want to wait until morning to figure your way off the island.” James informed Havok before hurrying to Casper’s side.

“Sorry about the wait, babes.” James gently took the hand Casper threw punch with and pressed his lips to the knuckles, healing the pain. “I’ll listen next time you tell me to ignore someone if I’m angry with them. Still on for cleaning up and getting back to our date or did I ruin it?”

"Babes, you remembered," Casper said, feeling touched. "And you couldn't ruin any date. Each one is magical and shit - and watching you kick his ass was amaaazing foreplay for me at least," he said with a smirk.

Havok didn't know where to begin to respond to James. Sapphire's body (from his perspective, at least) wasn't even cold yet - she had just died and here James was, calling her a horrible person. This was all happening next to Casper too. "If you really wanted to reconcile with her, you can - he can bring back the dead," Havok pointed out, pointing at Casper. Casper feigned ignorance. He didn't like summoning ghosts - and he was pretty certain Sapphire's ghost had wandered off to ghost Hawaii or something by now. Havok opened his mouth to scream something else, only to stop suddenly.

The Three in One - the White Queens of Genosha - stepped into the midst of the circle. The onlookers hadn't moved away from James' words, more intrigued than ever before with what was going on. It was like watching a car crash and they couldn't look away."I think that's enough of this," Esme Frost said.

"Definitely," Sophie agreed, scrunching up her nose.

"Even his mind smells like booze," Phoebe chimed in.

"We've got this from here," the three then said in unison. "Come along, Havok. We'll take care of you," the girls said, each of them putting a hand on his arms as they gently started to guide him away. Maybe he was too drunk or sad to protest - or maybe they were using their powers. It was hard to tell.

James took a steadying breath at Havok’s suggestion. Everytime he opened his mouth, Havok validated James’ dislike of the man. Why the fuck would James ask his boyfriend to do something he loathed, especially when it was apparent to anyone with two eyes Casper hated ghosts? He shouldn’t be surprised because Havok’s entire world revolved around himself and he should have known better than to expect any sort of emotional intelligence from the asshole. He just ignored him, thanking the Three in One as they took control of the situation (even as she shivered once they turned away), and looked at Casper, confused.

“I don’t think there was something to forget?” James asked slowly, not quite sure what Casper meant. He smirked back at Casper, pulling him close as he pulled his boyfriend to his feet. ”Then, it’d be a shame if we let all that work go to waste. Let’s go get dessert before we clean up.”