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Andy was relieved. She would have been fine with just about any reaction from Zari, except if she had been like, 'I never want to talk to you again, creep' that would have been heartbreaking. But she got probably the best possible reaction she could have hoped for. Andy smiled.

"That is okay that you aren't good with words. I'm not that great with them either." Andy hadn't grown up sheltered, but she also hadn't had the best education, so there were a lot of gaps. She held out her hand for Zari to take if she wanted. So they could keep playing in the rain together.

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Callie listened to Pixie as she started to explain what an Acheron actually was, she wasn't really into the whole pokemon stuff growing up, but she knew what she meant by that however. "Sounds pretty interesting then." Callie said as she looked back over towards Ben's body she didn't really have anything else to really do to help with bringing back Ben power wise anyway. She reached down and grabbed a box of fries from earlier, she really did love fries from McDonalds no matter if it was fresh or not they were still always good.

"I'll go and join you." Callie said as she looked towards Sunshine saying that she was going to stay and nodded before heading out of the room shortly behind Veil. Callie then took a bite out of some of the fries looking over at Veil and offered some for her, Casper and James could be anywhere on the island really. "So any idea where to start looking for them?" Callie asked Veil.

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Max had already known that the Acheron was capable of containing something. What he hadn't known was how it worked and how versatile it was. He'd expected it to be a prison for demons or some other sort of thing that went bump in the night. There was a pang of pain in his heart as emptiness settled in for a moment while he looked at the golden device in Pixie's hands. He'd wanted to try and use it to lock up the eldritch horror that had attacked the coven. But as it tended to happen, when he needed his magic the most it failed him. He couldn't grab the Acheron in time, countless mages lay dead at his feet and as usual he needed to find another way. Luckily for those who survived he had found a way, unknowingly offering a piece of his soul in order to weird a staff that banished the awful creature.

Max walked over towards her, plucking the magical artifact out of her hands and inspecting it for a moment before offering her a wide childish grin. "What can I say? I have some Strange friends. Kinda happens after you've had a multiversal trip with them to help reshape reality." He placed the device on the bookshelf behind his pillow, hiding it from plain sight. Had anything been written about having a plus one, Max wouldn't have hesitated to bring Pixie to the party. Surely she'd enjoy it, and he'd get to introduce two of his favorite casters to each other. Once Veil and Callie had left his room, his shoulders slumped a bit as he let out a small breath.

"I'll see what I can do for you Marrow. As for a new location. Pixie, know any locations that would be good for this? I didn't want to say anything in front of Veil or Callie but I'm grasping at straws here. This is uncharted territory and while I've got a great lead on what to do I could use all the help I can get up until the actual ritual. You two seem skeptical enough, and Pixie knows magic it's in her blood. So…any idea Pix?" Max said as he began helping Harry to pick up around the room. He hadn't planned for them to do the ritual in his room, but if they were going to he'd at least need to clean up a bit before then. As he grabbed food and items off the floor, Max made a passive wave of his hand, the cosmic magic flowing through him and swirling at Marrow's feet to make the best bowl of bone marrow stew she'd ever had.

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Harry listened in as the others spoke. Noticing that only Callie had left with his sister on the hunt for James and Casper. A part of him wondered if the telepaths on the island would be able to help them. Maybe they could ask them telepathically and see if they can scan the island for a location to at least narrow the search down to one place or even notify the two that they were being looked for. He watched as Max began to pick up the food that was placed on the floor, a slight eye roll coming over him.

"I'm a little afraid to ask but, why do you have so much stale McDonald's on the floor? Hardly any seems to be touched so clearly you're not eating it." Harry had asked. It seemed to be one of the many Elephants in the room that no one else was questioning. Max turned to look at Harry, an awkward smile on his face. "Oh. Um. Had a bit of a seance earlier today using a spirit box. Offering the spirits food, even McDonald's, helps with it a lot to make the connection more tangible. It's how I was able to talk to Ben without Casper." Harry stared at Max in odd amazement at the ridiculous string of words he'd just said. "Oh good. So you got consent before robbing a grave."

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Jack rolled his eyes a bit as he pulled the hair out of his pocket and let it zip over to Sinister or whatever. The how he got it was kind of sad really, considering it was literally just lying around her mansion or whatever. Then again, he very much didn't want to tell him the full story or whatever, including the part where he ended up snooping around a bit more and ended up finding her lair of sorts down in her hidden basement area. And almost got himself killed, again. Which honestly he didn't care too much about.

"Now see, you say that, but that was literally just sort of lying around, think she might be losing her hair or something because of that... Anyway I got what you wanted, so how about you do what you said you were going to if I got that for you," he didn't exactly want to be in the bar any longer then he had to be. Right now what mattered was whether or not Sinister would actually keep his end of the deal.

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Miranda couldn't help but laugh a little bit at Mongoose, and as well as Ellie's response to getting out of the rain in general. "I was born and spent my childhood in Alaska, takes more then a little rain to give me a cold really," she ended up saying to Ellie with a smile. Though the second part of what she said, about where to go, was a bit more complicated. Right now, she wasn't sure if she should head back to the House of M, since Magneto had more or less been avoiding her.

"...Could I maybe crash at your place for a little while? I'm not sure if Erik will finally talk to me about anything or what happened and all... So it might be better to stay away from there, at least for now..." she ended up saying to Ellie. She had offered, but even then, she didn't want to just full on assume anything, and just confirm or something that it was a possible option for her.

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Zari was just happy, not really caring about the rain anymore, well, really she didn't care about the rain in the first place having been perfectly fine sort of frolicking around in the rain a bit. This was a new thing for her, and a part of her couldn't help but wonder how her parents would react if she told them about this sort of thing. That would be an interesting conversation to have with them later on, when she got back home. Well, more of if, since a lot could still go wrong with this whole thing.

She then thought about how little most everyone knew about her, and only knew the sort of basics about how she was from the future and half-Asgardian. "If you want, we can go back inside, and I can tell you more about where I'm from and how I ended up here... Or we can play around in the rain some more, up to you, I'm fine either way," she said with a bit of a smile, before taking Andy's hand in her own.

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"In a controlled environment but rain is not that. We don't want him to catch a cold. Damn, it's really coming down too." James hadn't realized rain was in the forecast or he'd have brought them an umbrella. He could run home and grab one but he really didn't want to be away from Casper and Daniel. Not because an unsupervised Casper had a knack for finding trouble but because Casper holding their kid was adorable as hell and Janes didn't want to do anything but watch their little family together.

"Hey Ben." Greeted the ghost, even if he didn't know where he was at the moment. Maybe they should just wait out the weather? But they still had shopping to do and he'd rather wrap Casper and Daniel up in the blankets at home than make them wait in the hospital. He tapped his foot, more than a little annoyed but maybe the hospital had something to help?

"Give me a sec, babes. Gunna see if we can get umbrellas or something from Bee." He kissed Casper and little Daniel and headed back to the poor woman he'd been bothering so much. "You're going to hate me by the end of the day but do you know if there is somewhere nearby we can grab umbrellas? I don't want to take our baby into the rain without something covering him."

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Outside the Hospital...

"You.... I'm sorry, what?" Ben said, looking at Casper, before then looking at James. "Let me talk to James, I need to make sure that this is real and you didn't just... steal a baby or something," Ben insisted. He was incredibly concerned and incredibly confused.

"We did not steal a baby!" Casper whisper-hissed. "We filled out the piece of paper that Stacy X asked us to and got Danny fair and square. Plus, he's so adorable. I know that doesn't relate to your concerns, but you should really consider how cute he is."

Meanwhile, inside Bee chuckled a bit, looking up from her work. "I guess we're becoming best friends," she said sweetly. "Um, umbrella, umbrella... I don't actually know if we have any around, usually a weather manipulator just comes around and clears things up and..." Bee's voice trailed off. She glanced outside the window, seeing that the downpour had suddenly stopped. "Oh, there we go! Looks like it'll be a beautiful day now."

Outside the House of M...

The two girls were being completely and utterly adorable. Of course, such cute things could only be allowed to go on without interruption for only a short period of time - the universe, having seen this potential drama resolve, decided that it had to come up with MORE potential drama. Andy and Zari would hear the crows before they saw them - a group of three, with string tied to one foot on each crow, and the other end supporting a heavy package. The package looked like some sort of parcel, wrapped in black silk and tied with a grey bow.

The crows then came to a rest on a nearby stone, staring expectantly at Andy. One of them then pecked at strings and at the bow sealing the parcel and it came undone, revealing a fitted gothic outfit, a crown of black thorns, and a small skull with glowing blue orbs in its eye sockets.

"Hail, Luna Minor, daughter of the dark priestess, the demon huntress, goddess of the moon, immortal mother of mutants.... Selene!"

The crows then picked up the crown in their beaks, leaving the outfit and the skull on the stone, and flew over to Andy, placing the crown of thorns on her head. The rain then suddenly stopped, the sun now shining up ahead.

Bar Sinister...

Sinister snorted slightly, at Jack's comment that Selene might've been losing her hair - well, all the Sinisters snorted a bit at that. "Hmm, she might need to go get a snack sooner or later then, suppose she is getting rather old in the face these days," Sinister Prime joked. Though privately, he was a bit concerned at the idea of Selene losing hair - hadn't she just eaten a bunch of ghosts the other day when the island had been attacked? What was that witch up to?

"Right, right, the cure for your mother," another Sinister said, before motioning for Jack to follow him. "Unfortunately, her disease is incurable," he said. "So to work around it, we'll need to replace the broken bits - her body..."

The Sinisters lead Jack through a maze of sorts, before they came upon a room filled with strange glowing tubes that sort of looked like bacta tanks from Star Wars. Inside the tanks, Jack would see people floating, some of them he would recognize - some of the Stepford Cuckoos, Emma Frost, Jean Grey (or was it Maddie Pryor, it was always impossible to tell...), Havok....

And over in the left hand side, there was a tube containing a perfect clone of his mother. "All we need to do is put her mind into this new body - as simple as transferring over your files onto a new laptop, so you can throw the old one down the body chute," Sinister said cheerfully.

Hellfire Bay...

"Sure, don't see why not - Mongoose and Flower Child might get along," Renegade said. She did feel bad about what was going to happen to her granddaughter, if she died. She paused for a moment, before looking at Miranda. "If anything happens to me...When it happens to me... You'll look after Flower Child, right? I love Val, but she's a shit parent. And I doubt Jackie or Cas would be any better," Ellie admitted. She didn't think any of her children were really ready to take care of a child. Maybe they'd do better to start off with something small, like a fish. Or a sack of flour.

Mongoose made her way on over to them. "Are we leeeeaving now?" The rain then stopped all of the sudden, the sun shining up above them. Someone with weather control powers must've cleared up the brewing storm.

Magda Eisenhard Memorial Housing Complex - Max's Room...

Pixie thought for a moment. "Well, you're making a new spell - trying out some new magic - so.... I think as long as the location feels right to you - feels meaningful - then it's a good place to do this," she said. "If you just care about privacy, there's this gigantic tree that I've found on the island that's hollow on the inside, and it's like the size of a house... That could be a cool spot."

Marrow snorted slightly, seeing a bowl of marrow stew at her feet. "Damn, if only you could do magic like that all the time," she commented. As much as she was sweetly in love with Sunshine, Marrow could be an asshole at times. She bent down and picked up the bowl, before slurping it down. "Shit. That was fucking amazing."

Sunshine giggled a little bit at her wife's humor. But then she got focused on the task at hand again. Max didn't really seem to know much of what he was doing, which was slowly killing the little bit of hope she had that Ben would make it back okay - that Waverley and Kris and Erg and Sapphire.... and Illyana would make it back okay. She dreamed of a world where they didn't have to worry about humans stealing their lives anymore - where they could actually be free.

"So... You have a special tree you can use, then," Sunshine said. "Is that magicky enough for you?" she asked Max.

Outside the Magda Eisenhard Memorial Housing Complex...

Outside, the sky was a gorgeous shade of blue, and the sun was shining down on them. Veil squinted, her eyes adjusting to the light after the darkness of New Orleans. The ground was damp from freshly fallen rain, making everything a little bit slippery. Veil paused for a moment, thinking about where James and Casper could be. If they were only looking for Casper, Veil would've guessed he'd be at the Green Lagoon, drinking himself into an early grave. For James, Veil imagined he would've been somewhere on the island helping those in need. But the two of them together? Her mind was blanking.

"Not sure - hopefully they aren't fucking right now," Veil commented dryly. "Let's go to the Green Lagoon, see if they're there. And if they aren't, we can ask a telepath to track them down for us. There's bound to be a telepath there. Can't throw a rock on this island without hitting one."

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Andy smiled. It was like the world had become a happier place. She was still scared. She had no idea how to help Zari in her mission and what would happen after. But that was okay. Cause Zari was holding her hand and offering to explain to her. She nodded. "I don't mind if we talk outside." Then she heard the crows cawing. She looked up and saw the three crows flying with the package.

Andy watched in confusion as the crows landed, stared at her and opened the package. The least surprising thing was the talking skull, and that was probably because she was used to Zari's at this point. What the skull said was very unsettling. And the crows put the crown on her head.

"Uh, are you sure you have the right person?" The rain stopped. She looked at Zari, pure confusion written on her face. "The skull thinks I am Selene's daughter?" Andy knew her history. She knew she had been found nearly drowned in the ocean. That was as much as she knew. She had always wondered how she ended up in the ocean. If Selene was her mom did she know? Also, why was she only just now claiming her? Andy had been here for ages. Her mind raced.

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“Oh, uh, yeah. Uh, thanks for the help and sorry for bothering you again. Have a great day.” James waved goodbye, again, and stiffly marched back to Casper. An awkward pit settled firmly in his stomach because of course someone was going to deal with the weather. He’d been here for months, he should be used to that by now and if he’d have waited for longer than two seconds, it would have happened anyways. Now, he just looked like a demanding idiot. Thankfully, Casper was an easy subject to get distracted by, either because he was handsome, adorable,and sexy all wrapped into one person or he was about to do something terrible for his and/or someone else’s health. Though if James was being 100% honest, it was usually both.

And in this instance, it was Ben’s return. James would never say anything against Ben nor their friendship; afterall, Ben was here first and he was a chill ghost but Casper was far more easily riled up with Ben around and considering their 2 month old son was in Casper’s arms, James was a little hesitant to let that slide. “Well, now that they chased the rain away, do you mind if I hold Daniel on the walk home? I want to cuddle the baby a little.” James asked, not technically lying. Now that the doctor’s visit was over, James did want to hold their son again but he didn’t slide in the extra bit. “How was Ben’s day? Where was he hanging out today?”

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Callie squinted slightly as the sun was bright in her eyes a little bit her eyes had adjusted to the night back in New Orleans, but now it was really nice and warm here. She could see a few puddles around the area and the ground was still fairly wet she had to assume that it had been raining while they were gone. "Thanks for the lovely image there." Callie said jokingly to Veil, she didn't have a problem with them being together at all and thought that they were a cute couple anyway. "The Green Lagoon sounds like a good place to start then." Callie said to Veil as she headed that way.

Luckily there was one that happened to be on their way over, she didn't know the telepath's name really aside from a nearby citizen asked to relay a message to someone else on the island. "Looks like we didn't have to go to far." Callie said to Veil as she approached the telepath. "Hi there, was wondering if you'd be able to get in telepathic contact with Casper Theriot and James Kingston for us?"

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The idea of a right place to do it was almost lost on Max. He'd been running for so long he hardly built attachments to any one Location. Hell the few places he did feel like home in either got blown up, destroyed, or he ran from in the end. He wasn't sure how he was supposed to just pick a location. Not until Pixie mentioned the privacy of her secret tree. Instantly his mind went back towards ancient myths, the stories of the Asgardians, the tree Yggdrasil, and its meanings. There was a sense of symbolism there, an immediate tug of familiarity calling to him as if to say this is the placeI. If there was a mutant out there called Destiny, she must've been working overtime.

"Pixie Hollow. Sounds perfect actually. It's weird, I feel almost as if…as if I'm being called to it." Max placed what he was doing on the ground as he sat at the edge of the bed and looked onward for a moment. This couldn't possibly go wrong. "This is gonna work." He said, elation in his voice as a slight chuckle escaped with a smile. He looked towards Sunshine, hope filling him. "Magic enough? Honestly it's perfect. The symbolism alone, and I mean magic is all about symbolism. Hell even since the ancient times when-" Max caught himself, cutting off his sentence before he rambled on about history Sunshine probably didn't care for. "Anyways, yes. It's magicky enough. And Marrow, I can do magic like that all the time. But just for…small stuff. It's not as difficult as bridging spaces between two places, or creating chains to bind enhanced beings, or ya know…making an entire barrier made of stone and magic to keep my enemies ensnared. It's just some good soup."

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Harry placed down the items he was carrying. Watching as the plan began to unfold more and more. It felt way too last minute for him. Everything and everyone's hopes hanging on the shoulders of three young mutants, one of which who was winging it by the cuff of his pants. It had nothing to do with faith, Harry had all the faith in the world that they could pull it off. It was the lack of planning and organization that worried him beyond belief. What would happen if something went wrong? Would they lose Ben forever? Would they lose Max? James? Casper? There were too many unknowns, and even having been Max's roomate, he still hardly had a grasp on how any of this magic stuff worked.

But to see the amount of hope in his eyes, the sound of determination and joy in his voice. Harry would've believed that Max had actually found a way to perfect it. "No use cleaning up this dorm room then. You can do that on your own later. This tree though, is it far from here? Do we need any supplies for the ritual? Because if Veil and Callie are getting Casper and James right now, we don't have a lot of time left before we can get everything set up and prepared. And that includes walking there and seeing the location itself. No offense Pixie."

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Yup, this was still his worst nightmare, being in a bar, surrounded by several different clones of his father, which was not exactly something he ever imagined having to deal with. Right now, he really just wanted to get the hell out of there in general and hope for the best, but unfortunately there was still something he had to deal with, since his father had said he might have a solution to the thing revolving around his mother's illness or whatever it was that was killing her. So he silently followed along after him into the lower levels under the bar.

He had been in the are before of course with Callie and Veil, wandering around the basement and all to learn what exactly had gone on with him and all, but he wasn't going to admit that openly to Sinister at the moment. Hearing his idea of how to solve the problem, that was certainly one way to go about it. "Um, well, not sure she'd exactly be fine with that plan, not going to lie really," he said immediately, before continuing, "Not to mention you still haven't exactly told me what's really wrong with her."

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Miranda smiled at Ellie as she said that she and Mongoose could crash with her for a little while anyway. She listened to the next part she said, and she gave her a small smile, "Of course Ellie... But you know, don't necessarily count your kids out, who knows, maybe they'd be better parents then you give them credit for," she said with a slight laugh. Though she did think about how each of Ellie's kids would be like as parents, and she couldn't really imagine Casper as a parent at all of her kids, or well, any of them really now that she thought about it.

She looked at Mongoose as she complained about wanting to head off and get to some form of shelter. Though then the rain stopped entirely, resulting in some sunshine. "We might want to maybe get inside and into something a bit dryer, got to love the rain sometimes though right? Want to head to your place then now Ellie?" she said to her, figuring that they might want to head inside or wander or something, or talk in general somewhere else.

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"I mean, we can talk wherever, I'm fine with that," she said happily, before hearing what sounded like crows coming towards them. Which was a bit strange in her mind, but oh well, crows did exist in general or whatever, but she'd never really seen too many around the island in general, but her attention was immediately drawn towards the skull that seemed to be handed to Andy with a few other thing, and at first, it didn't even register what the skull said, or what Andy said in response to it at all.

"Ooooooh a skull! I wonder whose skull it was, and how it got enchanted to talk that is sooooo coooooooool!" she said, looking at it, before it hit in her mind what it was that it had said, and she was a bit confused as to what it meant. "Huh? How does that make sense? I mean it could be a mistake, but Selene is like some weird witch thing right? She probably would know her kid the instant she saw her, in theory anyway. Sooooo... I can see that as a possibility, but don't worry, if she is your mom or whatever, doesn't mean you're anything like her. Some kids are like their parents, like me, but I also was raised with both of them and just so happened to get powers that corresponded with my interests, while others are not. You don't seem very much like Selene, and just because she's your bio mom, doesn't mean you have to have any sort of connection or whatever with her if you don't want to. That is all up to you."

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Outside the Hospital...

Casper had no idea that James was partially lying to him, as he trusted James implicitly. "Okay, of course! Danny, I'm giving you to Pop-Pop now, you need to be good and not make any stinkies, promise?" Casper said seriously, as if baby Daniel could actually understand him. "And no turning yourself into a ball of fire, we aren't immortal - and I actually really vibe with our fits today, so I don't want them ruined," Casper then added, before handing the baby on over to James.

"Well... Shit. You were telling the truth, then," Ben said, gobsmacked.

"Duh! I wouldn't lie about kidnapping a baby, that's Jackie's thing!"

"Okay, but can you really blame me for wondering?" Ben asked, rolling his eyes. "I was with Max today actually. We got my body. He's going to bring me back to life, but he needs you two to help."

"....Okay, now you're the one that has to be joking," Casper said, his eyes wide. He turned to James. "Ben says that he was with Max, and Max is resurrecting him - and he needs us to do it?!?!"

And then suddenly, James and Casper would hear Veil's voice in their mind:

"James? Casper? We need to meet up with you both, Max needs you for a ritual... He's going to try to bring Ben back to life, and he needs you both for it to work... If it does, we could bring back anyone we had lost - no one would ever be taken away from us again" Veil pleaded.

Outside the House of M...

Zari was far nicer about Andy's confusion and hesitation than the crows were. Selene must've given the crows instructions on what to do should Andy reject her heritage. And of course, Selene wasn't the most subtle or patient of people. No, no, she didn't instruct the crows to do anything reasonable. Instead, the crows flew back up into the air, circling Andy for a moment, before suddenly diving at her... and stabbing their beaks into her heart. The crows' beaks penetrated, and any ordinary individual would have died.

But Andy's body reacted otherwise, filling her with an intense feeling of craving and need as her vitals depleted - a need for life force. To prove that she was the offspring of Selene, the crows had been instructed to fatally wound Andy, forcing her emergence as an energy vampire in her mother's own image.*

And what other living soul was there to feed on but Andy's new girlfriend, Zari?

*Yes, this is actually part of Selene's established power-set - she can turn other people into energy vampires

Bar Sinister...

The Sinisters clearly didn't want to answer Jack's question as to what was precisely wrong with Renegade - and some of them were better at hiding it than others. One of them looked obviously guilty, the others seeming relatively innocent - or at least, not responsible. "Oh, I'm sure she'll be fine with it - think of it as just a new spa treatment, replacing all the bad cells with clean, fresh new ones. New year, new you and all. And let's face it, Jackie, your mother hasn't exactly been taking the best care of her body anyways - I'm sure she'd appreciate a refresh."

"We can either make a complete copy of her psyche now, or you can wait till closer to when it happens. It doesn't really matter what happens once we've uploaded a copy into our databanks, though the closer to death of the original we are, the less of a gap there is," another Sinister said. "It's kinda like the save file of a game that way, if you think of it."

Hellfire Bay...

Renegade nodded. It was a decent walk from Hellfire Bay all the way back to her living quarters, as they were basically on other ends of the island. The island wasn't so incredibly large as to make it impossible to do or incredibly annoying - it really only took about 10 minutes when going at a brisk queer pace, longer if one wasn't. Fortunately, Renegade had a secret in order to speed up time. "Alright you two, I'm too lazy to do this at normal speed, so..."

Renegade focused, her eyes turning a vibrant shade of pink. A soft pink aura surrounded Miranda and Mongoose, as Renegade increased all of their kinetic energy. A walk that would've taken the group about 20 minutes or so was shortened down to only two. They would all feel the wind rushing in their hair and things would seem to almost blur around them, as they got a small taste of what life would be like at a speedster.

When they made it to the housing complex, Ellie returned their speeds to normal.

"Woah!!! Again, again, again!!!!" Mongoose cheered. "That was AWESOME!!!!"

Magda Eisenhard Memorial Housing Complex - Max's Room...

Pixie rolled her eyes slightly at Max dubbing the place she described Pixie Hollow. In her mind, she had been calling to Arbor Magna - she didn't really know why, it had just felt right to her. But she didn't share that name now with Max. She wasn't going to tell him what would or would not feel right to him. Plus, she figured it didn't really matter - a name was just a name sometimes. "If you want to go to a real Pixie Hollow, you should check out Otherworld - Roma Regina's kingdom is to die for," Pixie commented.

Marrow looked a bit unconvinced at Max's explanation - she hadn't known him very long, but everything her wife had told her about Max led her to believe that he was a walking gay disaster. She didn't know if he had the magic in him to pull off something this big, if his current skills seemed to max out at perfect soup. "Riiiight...." Marrow commented, a bit bitchy by nature. "Hopefully raising the dead is on the soup level, then."

"Alright, I trust you," Sunshine told Max with a noncommittal shrug. She was telling the truth though - she really did trust him. She hadn't always, but they had enough history together now that she couldn't help it. She would never admit it, but she liked his company and thought his antics were funny, and enjoyed being around him. She considered him to be her friend. "Boy Dazzler has a good point though - do you need anything? Maybe paper to draw more symbols on?" Sunshine asked Max.

"The tree isn't actually too far from here - it's almost in the dead center of the island," Pixie chimed in. "And don't worry, you can't offend me. And if you did, I'd hit you with my pixie dust~!"

Outside the Green Lagoon...

Most people on the island could be found at the Green Lagoon at any given moment, and it was near the Green Lagoon that Veil and Spark Plug ran into No-Girl aka Martha Johansson. The young telepath was a floating brain in a jar, a victim of a horrific crime perpetrated by humans a few years ago that cost her everything but her brain. She could communicate with others only telepathically.

"Sure, it's not like I'm doing anything..." Martha said with a bit of a sigh, her voice sounding in the minds of Veil and Spark Plug. Both girls would feel a slight pressure in their mind and then suddenly, they could feel themselves connected to James and Casper - like a conference call of sorts.

"James? Casper? We need to meet up with you both, Max needs you for a ritual... He's going to try to bring Ben back to life, and he needs you both for it to work... If it does, we could bring back anyone we had lost - no one would ever be taken away from us again" Veil pleaded.

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"Thank you." Callie said as she looked towards No-Girl as she felt her speaking into her and Veil's mind, agreeing to help them get into contact with James and Casper telepathically feeling the slight pressure as Veil spoke up first. "What Veil said is true, we went back to recover Ben's body over in New Orleans. If the two of you could meet back at our apartment and we can go over the details and whatnot in person." Callie said.

She looked over towards Veil, hopefully the two of them agreed to try and give this a go she thought about all of their friends that they had lost maybe they could even try getting Sapphire back somehow to. She didn't know what else she could do to help them out, she didn't really have the skillset to do anything though she was really hopeful that it would work out.

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Well, that went zero to sixty real quick. Andy didn't even have a chance to defend herself. She knew that the crow slammed through her skull. She was going to die. All because she was confused. After all this time, she was being claimed. It felt...wrong. But that didn't matter because her body needed sustenance. And it wasn't food it wanted. Her hand was still in Zari's. The back of Andy's mind knew that was bad; she wanted to fight it. But it felt so good. The life pouring into her. It was like that first cool drink of water after a hard workout.

She hadn't realized how thirsty she was. She hadn't known that she could even slake her thirst this way. She looked at Zari and knew that she was killing her. If Andy kept holding Zari's hand, she would kill her. NO!

Andy yanked her hand away and stumbled several steps away. She screamed. Her voice cracked as she screamed.

"I'm sorry." She said, her voice raw, temporarily destroyed. She looked to the crows. "Fine. I'm her daughter. Take me to her." She glanced at Zari. Andy had to put distance between them to protect her. She knew if she stayed near her, she might be pulled in by that deliciousness that was her energy. But why now? She had been here on the island for weeks, right? Why say something now and not when she first was here?

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Outside the Hospital...

Unfortunately, ghosts could not hear telepathy - so Ben had little to no idea what was going through Casper's mind as Casper's jaw dropped. "I didn't know Veil and Callie were telepaths," Casper said, looking at James for reassurance. He was definitely feeling overwhelmed, what with the new baby and the fact that Ben apparently was trying to come back from the dead - and let's be honest, Casper wasn't already the most logical of people on a good day. It just didn't occur to him that someone else was projecting their voices into their minds.

"Sooo.... It looks like Ben is telling the truth, which makes sense because you were always a horrible liar, no offense," Casper said. "Do we have time to help bring someone back from the dead when we have a baby though? Can we get a babysitter for that? Or I guess we could just ask Maman to watch after him, she might be a little mad she's a grandma because she's too fabulous to be old, but still..."

His voice trailed off. Casper was privately a little terrified. He loved Ben. What if something went wrong - what if they accidentally killed Ben again - like what if they destroyed him like whatever Selene had done when she ate up those ghosties?

"I'm a better liar than you are, bitch," Ben said, rolling his eyes.

Outside the House of M...

Andy had pulled herself away from Zarina, in order to not consume any of Zarina's precious life-force. As an Asgardian though, ironically Zarina would probably be one of the few people who would not be strongly hurt by a psychic vampire feeding briefly on them. It really did suck that all of this had to happen for Andy right here, right now - when she had finally managed to confess her feelings to Zari and find out that Zari had reciprocated. Today certainly had been a day of ups and downs - especially given Zari's fight with Magneto, in which he had decided to disown the valkyrie.

"NOT YET," the skull answered. The crows squawked expectantly at Andy. Her vision was blurring now. The wound the crows had caused had been healed by her new vampiric powers, but she had to replace that energy. If not with Zari's life force, then perhaps with the crows?

Outside the Green Lagoon...

If Martha had been something other than a floating brain in a jar, she might've rolled her eyes, twitched, or sighed slightly at the avalanche of thoughts coming in from Casper. They were disorganized and chaotic, some of them not even words, instead just being a series of images and vibes. "Oof... Your friend's mind is a disaster," Martha said into Callie and Veil's minds. "It's like a lost-and-found bin in there... Anyways, nothing's coming in from the other one. And the baby isn't going to respond either really."

"Wait, a baby?" Veil said, her eyes widening slightly. "That's what James and Casper were up to - is it their baby? Or is it someone else's baby nearby?" Veil asked. She couldn't imagine Casper as a parent, but she felt like James would be an amazing one. She just wasn't too sure whether Casper was really mature or thoughtful enough to raise someone - he seemed like a baby himself in a lot of ways.

"I'm not going to pry, that's gross - consent is important," Martha answered.

"... Fair," Veil said. All they could really do was pause and see if James would hopefully agree to come help them bring Ben back from the dead. Without them, this plan wouldn't work.

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Jack was just sort of listening to what it was that Sinister was saying, though he couldn't help but wonder what it was that was killing his mom, and one thing was certain, Sinister, or at least a few different versions of him, knew what. That, and they were deciding to just not tell him in general, which was beyond annoying. He was getting a bit tired of people not telling him things, or hiding things in general from him. That was just getting ore annoying to him, but his attention turned towards Sinister again as he spoke up about what to do or how this whole thing would work.

"Not sure still she'd be fine with it... Though if she was, you'd likely want to wait a little while, since then there would be less memory loss. Which trust me on the fact that leads to a lot of questions and usually ones no one wants to answer them," he responded, before going back to what his initial question was with regards to what exactly was the illness or whatever. "And you can't just ignore the question and pretend you don't know the answer, what is killing my mother?"

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Before Ellie had even done anything, Miranda had an idea of where she was going with her words, and what she was going to do. She more or less braced herself a bit for it, as Ellie raced the three of them off away from Hellfire Bay, and to the housing complex. It was a bit of a rush, but honestly it was something she was more or less expecting, and she couldn't help but find Mongoose's reaction to Ellie's power usage, it was definitely amusing to see the young girl's excitement over it.

"Not right now, besides, we were just going to be heading inside now, maybe later or something like that if Renegade's willing," she said to the girl, giving Renegade a bit of an apologetic look, feeling a bit bad on that one. Miranda did know the way to Ellie's apartment of sorts though, so she headed into the building. She was glad that Ellie was fine with her and Mongoose crashing with her for a little while, especially considering how things were going back where she lived.

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"Huh?" she couldn't help but wonder what was going on with the crows. Andy seemed to be taking this sort of news a bit hard, and honestly, she could probably see why. Though as she had said before, just because Selene was her mom didn't mean that she was anything like her. Personally, the woman was a bit weird and kind of creepy, but honestly, she herself was a bit weird, so who knew if that actually would amount to anything really. Just because someone was a bit weird and creepy didn't mean they were all that bad right?

Well that potential thought went out the window, as Selene in her mind went straight to insane as opposed to weird.

Her eyes went wide a bit as the crows more or less attacked Andy, causing her stumble a bit. She wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but she felt something weird or whatever going on, before Andy let go and backed away apologizing for, something. What that something was, she had no idea. "...What are you apologizing for? Nothing happened aside from the crows trying to kill you? And personally after that if I were you I'd want nothing to do with Selene, that's just me though..." she said to her, still incredibly confused as to what the hell just happened.

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It took James longer than he liked to shake off whatever came over him at the voices in his head. There were plenty of responses he’d wanted to give-reassure Ben that yes, this was in fact their child or chuckle at Casper’s concerns for their clothes or really anything acknowledging he’d heard him-but instead, his heart rate shot up, everything in him tense, shifting a little lower to curl over the baby, and he found himself searching for any sign that someone was messing with them. Anytime someone was in his head, he somehow fucking forgot where and who he was and he was really god damned tired of it. He didn’t want to lose this again.

But there wasn’t any immediate threat. Casper wasn’t panicking at the voices so that was a good sign. James took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax as much as he could, and tried to piece what was going on. Viel and Callie’s words were blurred by adrenaline and his own head chanting danger, danger, danger over and over again like a fucked up mantra but Casper’s follow up question put everything into reasonable perspective. Of course, that’s if your definition of reasonable includes one of the most leveled headed people you know to ask for help bringing people back from the dead. Casper was clearly starting to reach his threshold for the unexpected today and honestly, so was James. They were taking like a week off from everyone.

“Okay well, we can ask her to help or if you think it’d be too much for her, we can ask Veil and Callie to watch them? Or we can ask them to go pick up all the things we need while we do all this. Either way, we should talk to them and we can sift through their plans once we have all the information.” James replied, focusing on the logical decision of the moment rather than the slowly disappointing panic. “For now can you let them know we’ll meet them at the apartment and not to contact me via telepathy anymore? I think that’s going to be off the list for the foreseeable future.” James admitted, rocking Daniel gently.

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Max gave Marrow a leveled look. A slightly playful grin to his otherwise neutral demeanor. "I'd say it's just above good soup but slightly below McDonalds buffet for the dead." That was a lie of course. This was seemingly going to be one of, if not the most, difficult bout of magic that he would have cast even including all the wonders he'd pulled in Wanda World. But he let every word drip with confidence to try and assuage any worries that the other may have. Besides, he'd just fought an otherworldly being that resembled an eldritch deity and claimed to be the true Sorcerer Supreme above Dr. Strange while then going straight into a horde of ghosts that exasperated his powers. So bringing back the dead shouldn't be too difficult.

Harry and Sunshine had both brought up good points though. Did he need anything else for this ritual to work? His plans always seemed to work out best the less he planned them, having fate guide him as he went and always having him end up right where he was needing to be. Perhaps that was why he had mystically found and inherited a Tarot Deck. Some divine gift of fate to help show him the path. He thought for a moment, deciding he had no need for paper but something nagged at the back of his mind. "Candles. They won't be lit, so no worries there Pix, but symbolically I'd need them for something. And depending how large of a space we have I'm going to need quite a few of them."

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Harry rolled his eyes and he chuckled as he watched Max and Marrow talk about soup and spells. It was nice seeing him hit it off with Sunshines girlfriend so well. Even if a slight bit of tension was in the air. He could see how most of the undergrounds relationships were forming, since the day he arrived to where they are now. Each slowly building their bonds together and writing a perfect harmony as opposed to the discordant noise they were before. It only made sense that they'd extend that further out to those peoples loved ones as well. Making him think and hope that Veil could do the same for him and David.

"Real charmer that one. Isn't she Max?" Harry teased as he gestured towards Pixie with a bright smile. "I wouldn't dream of offending you love. Though I might be curious about that Pixie dust of yours later." He was glad to hear the tree was in the center of it all. Making it equidistant for all parties involved to get to from wherever they were. Max's request wasn't so difficult either. Surely there had to be candles around the island. Hell there was a school for magic here so they must've had a warehouse full of candles just ready to he used.

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Andy was in pain, but she also knew she was hungry. Not in a need food way. It was something else. Something more primal. She had just wanted to speak with her Mother (a weird thought after all these years). But the skull said not yet, and she knew exactly why. Andy couldn't bring herself to drain Zari. Even though Zari seemed to be okay.

The only other option was the crows. She reached out and pulled the energy she could feel within them. The crows dropped to the ground. Her wounds healed.

Damn, that felt good. Everything around her sharpened. It was as if she had been blind up to this point. Blind and dying slowly. But now she felt so good. She wanted more. Wanted to slake that hunger, that thirst. It all dropped away, and she saw Zari. This beautiful, mysterious girl. The desire Andy had had for ages now just to reach out and touch, kiss, her. Right now, her skin was singing for that contact.

Andy stepped closer to Zari, her hand touching Zari's shoulder and sliding to the back of her neck as she leaned in, kissing her.

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Callie looked at Veil with a confused look when Veil mentioned a baby. "Did Casper like kidnap someone's baby or something?" Callie asked a little bit confused as well to she really couldn't see Casper raising a kid even though he was a friend of hers he did act like a big child at times. She looked over at No-Girl for a moment and nodded towards her, she could understand the whole consent thing, and anything that was without it never really turned out to well. "Thats Casper pretty much all the time honestly and thanks for getting us in contact with them." Callie said to No-Girl as she spoke telepathically back to Casper and James.

"If you don't mind getting back home and we can discuss more in details on getting Ben back we'll meet you there." Callie said as she looked back over at Veil. They pretty much had to wait for James and Casper to show up and then they can actually get Ben back and eventually the rest of their friends as well to who had died along the way.