Deal With the Devil: Taken
Dec. 16th, 2013 07:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xp_daytripper posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logsAn ordinary evening at the mansion is disrupted by the sudden appearance of some most unwelcome visitors - and the disappearance of several mansion residents.
The sink had somehow managed to go out in Meggan’s bathroom. What had appeared to be a relatively minor dripping that she thought she could handle, had escalated quickly into a medium sized splash of water into her face. Once she had gathered towels to soak it up (and knew that trying to turn it off achieved nothing) and attempt to keep it from spreading, she had called for Fred. If it were a tiny nut or bolt which had caused the drama, maybe Fred could fix it.
Now she waited with dripping hair and almost bated breath...simultaneously peering into the bathroom, to be certain nothing else was going wrong. She wanted to keep it in her line of sight. Just in case. She hoped that it couldn't turn into a geyser.
Fred had found a hairline crack in the spigot, a few loose connectors on the bend, and a small hairclog in the catch. All small problems that had just built on top of each other and all it took was a little fiddling to make the whole sink revolt. It was hardly a problem at all: a shot of sealant, quick brushing to push the clog out, and tightening all the connectors. Fred got to his feet and turned back to Meggan, "Ah gotta say...Ah really hope there ain't more timebombs like this hanging around, or Ah'm gonna have to bribe Gibney intah helpin me check em all..." The massive Texan moved to get out of the way, so Meggan could get back into the Bathroom, "But looks like it's good as new. Yah wanna have the honors of checking it?"
“Thank you so much, Fred,” Meggan replied gratefully as she came back in. She tested the sink cautiously. The only thing that happened was water poured out perfectly normally. “Success,” she announced happily. “I think it's good now. You've fixed it!” She might want to mop up any remnants of liquid on the wall closest to everything, just in case, though. She nodded in agreement, and just hoped he and Kyle didn’t need to deal with any other sink issues that had done what hers had.
Fred grinned and packed up the brush and sealant back into the toolbox, "No problem, Meggan. Want me to take those towels to the wash?" a lot of run-off sitting around equaled mildew, and that was not a problem Fred wanted to add to the upkeep list...
“That’s probably a good idea. They need it,” Meggan agreed. If they didn’t get washed, they would start to smell. She had just realized how soaked through all the towels were, too. So he wouldn’t get even wetter, she went to quickly wring them out as best as was possible over the tub, before bringing them back to him. He wouldn’t leave a trail of dripping water on the carpet to add to the mess, this way. “Thank you again.”
Fred went to wave off the complement, when he caught something out of the corner of his eye, this quick splash of teeth and bright red skin. He took in a breath, gawking as the hunched monster skittered towards him and lunged. Fred grabbed it out of the air as it lunged at him. There wasn't any more hesitation, there wasn't even really amazement; Fred had seen mutated cyber-bureaucrats, Indian Mutant Commandos, and Religious Zealots with Flamethrowers. Why would gross little critters, pouring in from the nearby window, be any less possible? The only difference here was a girl between the window, the goblins, and Fred. He used the big handful of gnashing teeth and nails as a blunt weapon against the little monsters pouring into the room, and he shouted over their hissing, "Meggan, run! Go get help! Kyle, Scott, anyone!"
Meggan quickly threw her hair dryer at one little creature, since it was the nearest thing outside of soon to be smelly towels that could be used as a weapon. Going over them by air was no good, as they hastily slashed at her legs. She kicked out, not wanting to be eaten, or bitten. Too many would weigh her down enough for that to be an option. She couldn’t help but wonder if goblins had rabies or something nastier in those hungry teeth. “Trying! I will as soon as I can distract these guys!” Running for help was definitely the plan, she wouldn’t argue with Fred there. Maybe Amanda would know what to do. Were there more of them than just in this room? When she made it out of the bathroom, she would shout for everybody in the mansion.
As the little gang of attackers quickly turned into a swarm. Fred swung and punched almost wildly; it wasn't really like he could miss. One of the goblins exploded into a thick, almost clear goo as Fred's enormous fist launched into its face. Fred didn't have time to recoil before another one got a jaw full of the doughy flesh on his arm. When Fred slammed it into the door frame, it burst into a gory, but much more natural, mass. Fred couldn't have figured it out if he'd wanted to; he was trying to push the growing group back out the window, and at the same keep the group away from Meggan. He was losing the fight on both fronts.
Meggan managed to knock one off of her with a solid kick to the head. It resulted in a similar burst of a slimy mass. However, more took their place as they swarmed to fill the gap that had oh so briefly almost meant she could get out of the room. Was it her imagination or had they multiplied? One thing with very large teeth had yanked her leg closer to the others and was holding tightly to her pants. She needed heavier things in here, things that could be thrown and gain the same results as Fred had discovered, on a bigger scale. Now was the only time in her life she would truly regret not keeping one of her larger college hardcover texts next to the bathroom sink. Those could have beaten them back, or just knocked one over for a good distraction.
Fred tried to control himself. If he started freaking out...the room could get a lot more cramped a lot faster. He tried to take it slow, crush or mangle what he could reach one at a time, but when he saw the smaller swarm of the little things baring down on Meggan he just started squeezing and crushing anything that was stupid enough to get in front of his face. He picked up one of the larger monsters and threw it into the group threatening the smaller mutant. He shouted to her "MEGGAN! OUT! NOW!" through the chorus of hissing and clicking from the swarm. Where were they coming from? Where did they keep coming from...!?
She would be getting out now, if she could. Something grabbed her hair tightly with long claws, in an effort to yank until she couldn’t cling to anything near the ceiling anymore. She could hear it hissing along with all the others. It was a good plan for it, but not for her. She didn’t want to be slashed into bits too tiny to identify, she really, really didn’t. Before she could shout to Fred that she was trying to get out, but was being prevented in a major way, something opened up in the floor a few feet from her, and her eyes widened in fear. It wasn’t a regular hole, but was it where these creatures were from? Or something else? “Fred!” It didn’t matter anymore, she was being dragged that way against her will. She tried clinging to whatever she could, from the ceiling to the sink to the wall, but some force still pulled at her, ripping her from the potential safety of each. Another cry of warning was lost as
she was sucked the rest of the way inside the portal.
Fred watched Meggan pulled into the hole, shouting his name as she vanished. There was that old snapping feeling he'd felt before, like crunching leaves behind his eyes and travelling down to his gut. Fred didn't hold back as he crashed his feet through the tiny enemies, using the walls as weapons as he pressed handful after handful of the little bastards against them. Maybe he could've moved faster...but he took a little extra time to make sure than any of the demons that would even be left to follow him after Meggan would've been either crippled or too scared to try it. The pull from the vortex didn't bother him; Fred didn't move if he didn't want to, and he was heading in that direction anyway. He dove headfirst into the hole to nowhere, fists tight and ready to smash anything between him and his friend.
It was late, but it always was late when Angelo left the office - and he'd promised to try and stop doing that quite so often. With a sigh, he pushed back in his chair, absently tidying the papers on his desk, and got to his feet.
Time to go home, and try to relax.
There was a soft sound, a displacement of air and a brief blast of searing hot air above him. Angelo barely had time to look up before the first figure descended on him, small but heavy and with tough, thick skin. Yellow eyes gleamed crazily as the invader cackled and bared long fangs in Angelo's face. Hot moist breath stinking of rotten meat bathed his face.
The instant reaction was skin blades, lashing out at its eyes. It might have been a while since the last demon invasion, but Angelo wasn't going to go easily.
The creature screeched as Angelo's blades cut deeply into its eyes. And perhaps, if it had been the only one, Angelo might have stood a chance. Instead, at the first demon's cry of pain and distress, the portal flexed and all at once came pouring out a small horde of the creatures. The young Hispanic was literally buried beneath a wave of scaly bodies, all reaching and grasping for him with long, sharp clawed hands.
Jean-Phillipe enjoyed the garage at the mansion - for all of the wealth that oozed out of almost every inch of Xavier's property, the garage was clearly a place where people worked with their hands. It wasn't some pristine showroom, the faint tang of motor oil reminded him of his time working on the docks, and the well-kept machines within appealed to his masculine enjoyment of the 'toys' that were stereotypical to his gender.
Of course, one of the regular people that spent a lot of their time in the garage working on this and that didn't exactly fit the stereotype. Perhaps the slightly different 'butch' stereotype, but still. "Bonjour," he said in greeting to Callisto as he saw her lean out from under one of the cars to see who had entered.
"Hey," was her typical, monosyllabic reply. "Need something?"
"Non, simply out for a walk," Jean-Phillipe said easily. When you were as frequently abrasive as Jean-Phillipe could be to some, it just seemed to not faze him when others were. He lounged against a pillar and arched an eyebrow. "You?"
"I'll never say no to a hot dog if you have one stashed somewhere," the other woman said with a smirk, as though this was some private joke. "You can pass me that wrench while you're here, though." Clearly Callisto's general assumption about people in the garage was that they were here to pass her stuff.
Jean-Phillipe levered himself up and grabbed the indicated wrench. He watched Callisto work in companionable silence for a well, not feeling a need to chatter aimlessly. Abrasive and brusque he might be, but he enjoyed quiet too.
Quiet, unfortunately, was not on the agenda for today. The first sign they had of anything wrong was the slightest crackle, just at the edge of hearing. Callisto was immediately swinging up and out from under the car, sniffing the air, and a moment later Jean-Phillipe smelled it too, a strange, slightly sulphurous burning.
Then the rift opened - a dark hole howling into being only a moment before the demons began to pour out of it.
"Tabernac!" Jean-Paul Beaubier's Quebecois habit of using the trappings of Catholic Mass as swearwords had rubbed off on Jean-Phillipe at some point, and it seemed especially accurate, given the hellish aspect of the portal and the demons it disgorged. The wrench, which he had been about to pass to Callisto, crackled with a surge of electricity and hummed through the air to strike the first demon to come within arm's reach.
The scent of gasoline, a wrench in his hands, and the adrenaline of a fight. It felt just like his time working on the docks. "Plus ca change..." He grunted. He hadn't brought his heavily-shielded school phone (with its attendant panic button) to the garage, as he had not been planning on leaving campus. "Do you have a way to call for backup?" he yelled to Callisto.
Callisto shrugged. "'Back-up'?" she said doubtfully - whether this represented her confusion at the idea of her ever needing or wanting back-up or, rather more sarcastically, her version of calling for it was entirely uncertain, as a moment later the fiends were upon them and there was important punching and hitting to do.
Well, that was as much of a nod toward strategy and contacting the other X-Men as was likely from the pair. Jean-Phillipe grunted and waded in to the melee.
Unfortunately, backup might have been a needed thing, as more and more demons flowed out of the portal at the pair. For every one that was brought down, several more joined the throng, leaping over cars, clawing up paint jobs, and squeezing in on Callisto and Jean-Phillipe until they occupied only a small space in the middle of a large crowd of demons.
Callisto was bashing heads and stamping necks at quite a rate and literally had a whole pile of bodies building up around her, and yet the demons kept coming.
"Oh, hey!" she yelled suddenly as they were pushed toward one of the thick pillars that held up the low garage ceiling. As Jean-Phillipe elbowed a demon savagely in the face and turned to look in her direction, Callisto pointed to a large red button inset on a plate on said pillar.
"There's a panic button," she said. "Never noticed that before." She grabbed a charging demon and smashed its head into the button, and a siren began to peal, but her momentary distraction had been enough for one of the monsters to flank her and suddenly it had impacted with her from the side, sending the slim woman flying. She seemed more pissed off than injured, but it was enough - she had been overpowered and was soon being physically thrown through the rift, and then she was gone.
With the two of them together, they might have held out until more people arrived, but with Callisto removed through the portal, it wasn't long after before Jean-Phillipe was overcome as well and hurled through the portal, which closed with a soft shushing sound, leaving nothing but the wreckage of the fight behind.
Pixie sighed and took a step back from the canvas. It was the first time she'd attempted something so large, but other than that it was no different than one of her shoes. She'd sketched out the composition lightly and was beginning to put down layers of color. Only now it was beginning to look a little weird. Maybe she'd just been working too long. It was past time for tea, anyway.
But instead of getting ready to leave the boathouse-converted-to-art-space, she flopped down on a chair and looked over her sketches. She had done most of them while on her cultural exchange trip to Hong Kong that she'd gone on with the New York Academy Art's fashion school. (I need to look up what I called it before). They started out as fashion sketches but had evolved into an entire story that she was trying to tell. They weren't just clothes for mutants with different clothing needs, they were characters. And there were familiar Pixie motifs too, like geometric shapes and butterflies that ended up on a lot of her hand-painted shoes. If she could pull it off, it would be a really cool, large acrylic painting. If not... well it was her first attempt of something like this. She looked up from her sketchbook and back at the canvas. If only she had another set of eyes, she could probably spot the problem...
There was a scratching sort of noise from across the room, emanating from behind a stack of canvases. Then a sort of skittering, like clawed feet scurrying across the wooden floor and a squeaking, which sounded like a high-pitched giggle, but was probably only a mouse. Or a rat. Something like that. On the air a hint of smoke wafted, or maybe it was fog?
Pixie stood up and had a look about the place, straining her ears as she attempted to locate where the rats were coming from, if that's what they were. She then jumped as a glass mason jar fell to the floor, spilling paintbrushes across the floor, sending them rolling.
"Hello? Is someone there?" Her call met only silence. Oh, this was ridiculous. If there were rats, she knew of one way to find out. She moved to a corner of the place and walked slowly along the perimeter, scanning the floor for rat droppings or holes where vermin could be getting into the walls. They would eat practically anything and holes needn't be large at all.
She then looked up suddenly as she detected a blur of motion. But all was still. Then a scratching sound at the ceiling caused her to move her gaze further up. Were they in the ceiling?
Suddenly she felt something skitter by her foot.
"Eew eew..." she squeaked as a shiver ran up her spine and down her wings. "Seriously, who's there?" She really hoped it wasn't rats, that maybe someone was messing with her.
There was a chittering in response, almost like high-patched, malevolent laughter and something moved behind her. A blurred shape, the size of a large dog, darting from shadow to shadow. But as soon as she spun around to catch it, there was another noise from the direction she'd just been facing, a scraping like claws against wood. And more sounds from the ceiling, the walls, even the floor beneath her. Skitterings and scratchings and screechings and squeakings, all around her now.
"What was that?!" Pixie yelped, really starting to get anxious now. She lifted up into the air, hovering above the floor that seemed to be coming alive. But that brought her closer to the ceiling, where she could hear something moving in the space above. She moved towards the door but the shadows there flickered for a moment, giving her the feeling that something was lurking there. Her heartbeat began to quicken and her hands grew clammy.
"Show yourself!"
The response was a chorus of sniggerings, and a cacophony of mocking voices. "Show yourself! Show yourself! Show yourself!" Then figures came into view out of the shadows, some creeping across the floor, some crawling along the ceiling, all ugly and predatory-looking. "Be careful what you wish for, fairy-girl," mocked one, taller than the others. "Or the Master will grant your wish!" At his - its - gesture, hands reached out to grab her.
Pixie shrieked and stuck out at the grotesque hands, but she hit nothing other than air.
"Master? What Master?" Her panicked thoughts seem to echo loudly in her own head as the world fell away. She'd teleported with people before - but this felt wrong for that. It felt like the room's height, width and depth were ripped apart and she was being funneled through the forced gap between them to another dimension. Her brain seemed to be folding inside out. "I never even had tea…"
The sink had somehow managed to go out in Meggan’s bathroom. What had appeared to be a relatively minor dripping that she thought she could handle, had escalated quickly into a medium sized splash of water into her face. Once she had gathered towels to soak it up (and knew that trying to turn it off achieved nothing) and attempt to keep it from spreading, she had called for Fred. If it were a tiny nut or bolt which had caused the drama, maybe Fred could fix it.
Now she waited with dripping hair and almost bated breath...simultaneously peering into the bathroom, to be certain nothing else was going wrong. She wanted to keep it in her line of sight. Just in case. She hoped that it couldn't turn into a geyser.
Fred had found a hairline crack in the spigot, a few loose connectors on the bend, and a small hairclog in the catch. All small problems that had just built on top of each other and all it took was a little fiddling to make the whole sink revolt. It was hardly a problem at all: a shot of sealant, quick brushing to push the clog out, and tightening all the connectors. Fred got to his feet and turned back to Meggan, "Ah gotta say...Ah really hope there ain't more timebombs like this hanging around, or Ah'm gonna have to bribe Gibney intah helpin me check em all..." The massive Texan moved to get out of the way, so Meggan could get back into the Bathroom, "But looks like it's good as new. Yah wanna have the honors of checking it?"
“Thank you so much, Fred,” Meggan replied gratefully as she came back in. She tested the sink cautiously. The only thing that happened was water poured out perfectly normally. “Success,” she announced happily. “I think it's good now. You've fixed it!” She might want to mop up any remnants of liquid on the wall closest to everything, just in case, though. She nodded in agreement, and just hoped he and Kyle didn’t need to deal with any other sink issues that had done what hers had.
Fred grinned and packed up the brush and sealant back into the toolbox, "No problem, Meggan. Want me to take those towels to the wash?" a lot of run-off sitting around equaled mildew, and that was not a problem Fred wanted to add to the upkeep list...
“That’s probably a good idea. They need it,” Meggan agreed. If they didn’t get washed, they would start to smell. She had just realized how soaked through all the towels were, too. So he wouldn’t get even wetter, she went to quickly wring them out as best as was possible over the tub, before bringing them back to him. He wouldn’t leave a trail of dripping water on the carpet to add to the mess, this way. “Thank you again.”
Fred went to wave off the complement, when he caught something out of the corner of his eye, this quick splash of teeth and bright red skin. He took in a breath, gawking as the hunched monster skittered towards him and lunged. Fred grabbed it out of the air as it lunged at him. There wasn't any more hesitation, there wasn't even really amazement; Fred had seen mutated cyber-bureaucrats, Indian Mutant Commandos, and Religious Zealots with Flamethrowers. Why would gross little critters, pouring in from the nearby window, be any less possible? The only difference here was a girl between the window, the goblins, and Fred. He used the big handful of gnashing teeth and nails as a blunt weapon against the little monsters pouring into the room, and he shouted over their hissing, "Meggan, run! Go get help! Kyle, Scott, anyone!"
Meggan quickly threw her hair dryer at one little creature, since it was the nearest thing outside of soon to be smelly towels that could be used as a weapon. Going over them by air was no good, as they hastily slashed at her legs. She kicked out, not wanting to be eaten, or bitten. Too many would weigh her down enough for that to be an option. She couldn’t help but wonder if goblins had rabies or something nastier in those hungry teeth. “Trying! I will as soon as I can distract these guys!” Running for help was definitely the plan, she wouldn’t argue with Fred there. Maybe Amanda would know what to do. Were there more of them than just in this room? When she made it out of the bathroom, she would shout for everybody in the mansion.
As the little gang of attackers quickly turned into a swarm. Fred swung and punched almost wildly; it wasn't really like he could miss. One of the goblins exploded into a thick, almost clear goo as Fred's enormous fist launched into its face. Fred didn't have time to recoil before another one got a jaw full of the doughy flesh on his arm. When Fred slammed it into the door frame, it burst into a gory, but much more natural, mass. Fred couldn't have figured it out if he'd wanted to; he was trying to push the growing group back out the window, and at the same keep the group away from Meggan. He was losing the fight on both fronts.
Meggan managed to knock one off of her with a solid kick to the head. It resulted in a similar burst of a slimy mass. However, more took their place as they swarmed to fill the gap that had oh so briefly almost meant she could get out of the room. Was it her imagination or had they multiplied? One thing with very large teeth had yanked her leg closer to the others and was holding tightly to her pants. She needed heavier things in here, things that could be thrown and gain the same results as Fred had discovered, on a bigger scale. Now was the only time in her life she would truly regret not keeping one of her larger college hardcover texts next to the bathroom sink. Those could have beaten them back, or just knocked one over for a good distraction.
Fred tried to control himself. If he started freaking out...the room could get a lot more cramped a lot faster. He tried to take it slow, crush or mangle what he could reach one at a time, but when he saw the smaller swarm of the little things baring down on Meggan he just started squeezing and crushing anything that was stupid enough to get in front of his face. He picked up one of the larger monsters and threw it into the group threatening the smaller mutant. He shouted to her "MEGGAN! OUT! NOW!" through the chorus of hissing and clicking from the swarm. Where were they coming from? Where did they keep coming from...!?
She would be getting out now, if she could. Something grabbed her hair tightly with long claws, in an effort to yank until she couldn’t cling to anything near the ceiling anymore. She could hear it hissing along with all the others. It was a good plan for it, but not for her. She didn’t want to be slashed into bits too tiny to identify, she really, really didn’t. Before she could shout to Fred that she was trying to get out, but was being prevented in a major way, something opened up in the floor a few feet from her, and her eyes widened in fear. It wasn’t a regular hole, but was it where these creatures were from? Or something else? “Fred!” It didn’t matter anymore, she was being dragged that way against her will. She tried clinging to whatever she could, from the ceiling to the sink to the wall, but some force still pulled at her, ripping her from the potential safety of each. Another cry of warning was lost as
she was sucked the rest of the way inside the portal.
Fred watched Meggan pulled into the hole, shouting his name as she vanished. There was that old snapping feeling he'd felt before, like crunching leaves behind his eyes and travelling down to his gut. Fred didn't hold back as he crashed his feet through the tiny enemies, using the walls as weapons as he pressed handful after handful of the little bastards against them. Maybe he could've moved faster...but he took a little extra time to make sure than any of the demons that would even be left to follow him after Meggan would've been either crippled or too scared to try it. The pull from the vortex didn't bother him; Fred didn't move if he didn't want to, and he was heading in that direction anyway. He dove headfirst into the hole to nowhere, fists tight and ready to smash anything between him and his friend.
It was late, but it always was late when Angelo left the office - and he'd promised to try and stop doing that quite so often. With a sigh, he pushed back in his chair, absently tidying the papers on his desk, and got to his feet.
Time to go home, and try to relax.
There was a soft sound, a displacement of air and a brief blast of searing hot air above him. Angelo barely had time to look up before the first figure descended on him, small but heavy and with tough, thick skin. Yellow eyes gleamed crazily as the invader cackled and bared long fangs in Angelo's face. Hot moist breath stinking of rotten meat bathed his face.
The instant reaction was skin blades, lashing out at its eyes. It might have been a while since the last demon invasion, but Angelo wasn't going to go easily.
The creature screeched as Angelo's blades cut deeply into its eyes. And perhaps, if it had been the only one, Angelo might have stood a chance. Instead, at the first demon's cry of pain and distress, the portal flexed and all at once came pouring out a small horde of the creatures. The young Hispanic was literally buried beneath a wave of scaly bodies, all reaching and grasping for him with long, sharp clawed hands.
Jean-Phillipe enjoyed the garage at the mansion - for all of the wealth that oozed out of almost every inch of Xavier's property, the garage was clearly a place where people worked with their hands. It wasn't some pristine showroom, the faint tang of motor oil reminded him of his time working on the docks, and the well-kept machines within appealed to his masculine enjoyment of the 'toys' that were stereotypical to his gender.
Of course, one of the regular people that spent a lot of their time in the garage working on this and that didn't exactly fit the stereotype. Perhaps the slightly different 'butch' stereotype, but still. "Bonjour," he said in greeting to Callisto as he saw her lean out from under one of the cars to see who had entered.
"Hey," was her typical, monosyllabic reply. "Need something?"
"Non, simply out for a walk," Jean-Phillipe said easily. When you were as frequently abrasive as Jean-Phillipe could be to some, it just seemed to not faze him when others were. He lounged against a pillar and arched an eyebrow. "You?"
"I'll never say no to a hot dog if you have one stashed somewhere," the other woman said with a smirk, as though this was some private joke. "You can pass me that wrench while you're here, though." Clearly Callisto's general assumption about people in the garage was that they were here to pass her stuff.
Jean-Phillipe levered himself up and grabbed the indicated wrench. He watched Callisto work in companionable silence for a well, not feeling a need to chatter aimlessly. Abrasive and brusque he might be, but he enjoyed quiet too.
Quiet, unfortunately, was not on the agenda for today. The first sign they had of anything wrong was the slightest crackle, just at the edge of hearing. Callisto was immediately swinging up and out from under the car, sniffing the air, and a moment later Jean-Phillipe smelled it too, a strange, slightly sulphurous burning.
Then the rift opened - a dark hole howling into being only a moment before the demons began to pour out of it.
"Tabernac!" Jean-Paul Beaubier's Quebecois habit of using the trappings of Catholic Mass as swearwords had rubbed off on Jean-Phillipe at some point, and it seemed especially accurate, given the hellish aspect of the portal and the demons it disgorged. The wrench, which he had been about to pass to Callisto, crackled with a surge of electricity and hummed through the air to strike the first demon to come within arm's reach.
The scent of gasoline, a wrench in his hands, and the adrenaline of a fight. It felt just like his time working on the docks. "Plus ca change..." He grunted. He hadn't brought his heavily-shielded school phone (with its attendant panic button) to the garage, as he had not been planning on leaving campus. "Do you have a way to call for backup?" he yelled to Callisto.
Callisto shrugged. "'Back-up'?" she said doubtfully - whether this represented her confusion at the idea of her ever needing or wanting back-up or, rather more sarcastically, her version of calling for it was entirely uncertain, as a moment later the fiends were upon them and there was important punching and hitting to do.
Well, that was as much of a nod toward strategy and contacting the other X-Men as was likely from the pair. Jean-Phillipe grunted and waded in to the melee.
Unfortunately, backup might have been a needed thing, as more and more demons flowed out of the portal at the pair. For every one that was brought down, several more joined the throng, leaping over cars, clawing up paint jobs, and squeezing in on Callisto and Jean-Phillipe until they occupied only a small space in the middle of a large crowd of demons.
Callisto was bashing heads and stamping necks at quite a rate and literally had a whole pile of bodies building up around her, and yet the demons kept coming.
"Oh, hey!" she yelled suddenly as they were pushed toward one of the thick pillars that held up the low garage ceiling. As Jean-Phillipe elbowed a demon savagely in the face and turned to look in her direction, Callisto pointed to a large red button inset on a plate on said pillar.
"There's a panic button," she said. "Never noticed that before." She grabbed a charging demon and smashed its head into the button, and a siren began to peal, but her momentary distraction had been enough for one of the monsters to flank her and suddenly it had impacted with her from the side, sending the slim woman flying. She seemed more pissed off than injured, but it was enough - she had been overpowered and was soon being physically thrown through the rift, and then she was gone.
With the two of them together, they might have held out until more people arrived, but with Callisto removed through the portal, it wasn't long after before Jean-Phillipe was overcome as well and hurled through the portal, which closed with a soft shushing sound, leaving nothing but the wreckage of the fight behind.
Pixie sighed and took a step back from the canvas. It was the first time she'd attempted something so large, but other than that it was no different than one of her shoes. She'd sketched out the composition lightly and was beginning to put down layers of color. Only now it was beginning to look a little weird. Maybe she'd just been working too long. It was past time for tea, anyway.
But instead of getting ready to leave the boathouse-converted-to-art-space, she flopped down on a chair and looked over her sketches. She had done most of them while on her cultural exchange trip to Hong Kong that she'd gone on with the New York Academy Art's fashion school. (I need to look up what I called it before). They started out as fashion sketches but had evolved into an entire story that she was trying to tell. They weren't just clothes for mutants with different clothing needs, they were characters. And there were familiar Pixie motifs too, like geometric shapes and butterflies that ended up on a lot of her hand-painted shoes. If she could pull it off, it would be a really cool, large acrylic painting. If not... well it was her first attempt of something like this. She looked up from her sketchbook and back at the canvas. If only she had another set of eyes, she could probably spot the problem...
There was a scratching sort of noise from across the room, emanating from behind a stack of canvases. Then a sort of skittering, like clawed feet scurrying across the wooden floor and a squeaking, which sounded like a high-pitched giggle, but was probably only a mouse. Or a rat. Something like that. On the air a hint of smoke wafted, or maybe it was fog?
Pixie stood up and had a look about the place, straining her ears as she attempted to locate where the rats were coming from, if that's what they were. She then jumped as a glass mason jar fell to the floor, spilling paintbrushes across the floor, sending them rolling.
"Hello? Is someone there?" Her call met only silence. Oh, this was ridiculous. If there were rats, she knew of one way to find out. She moved to a corner of the place and walked slowly along the perimeter, scanning the floor for rat droppings or holes where vermin could be getting into the walls. They would eat practically anything and holes needn't be large at all.
She then looked up suddenly as she detected a blur of motion. But all was still. Then a scratching sound at the ceiling caused her to move her gaze further up. Were they in the ceiling?
Suddenly she felt something skitter by her foot.
"Eew eew..." she squeaked as a shiver ran up her spine and down her wings. "Seriously, who's there?" She really hoped it wasn't rats, that maybe someone was messing with her.
There was a chittering in response, almost like high-patched, malevolent laughter and something moved behind her. A blurred shape, the size of a large dog, darting from shadow to shadow. But as soon as she spun around to catch it, there was another noise from the direction she'd just been facing, a scraping like claws against wood. And more sounds from the ceiling, the walls, even the floor beneath her. Skitterings and scratchings and screechings and squeakings, all around her now.
"What was that?!" Pixie yelped, really starting to get anxious now. She lifted up into the air, hovering above the floor that seemed to be coming alive. But that brought her closer to the ceiling, where she could hear something moving in the space above. She moved towards the door but the shadows there flickered for a moment, giving her the feeling that something was lurking there. Her heartbeat began to quicken and her hands grew clammy.
"Show yourself!"
The response was a chorus of sniggerings, and a cacophony of mocking voices. "Show yourself! Show yourself! Show yourself!" Then figures came into view out of the shadows, some creeping across the floor, some crawling along the ceiling, all ugly and predatory-looking. "Be careful what you wish for, fairy-girl," mocked one, taller than the others. "Or the Master will grant your wish!" At his - its - gesture, hands reached out to grab her.
Pixie shrieked and stuck out at the grotesque hands, but she hit nothing other than air.
"Master? What Master?" Her panicked thoughts seem to echo loudly in her own head as the world fell away. She'd teleported with people before - but this felt wrong for that. It felt like the room's height, width and depth were ripped apart and she was being funneled through the forced gap between them to another dimension. Her brain seemed to be folding inside out. "I never even had tea…"
