xp_logs | Marie-Ange, Wade, and Molly. Revelations 6:1-2

A wardrobe mistake causes Molly to reveal to Marie-Ange and Wade just who the Horseman of Death was in the universe that Essex created for Rachel.

Fidgeting, not sitting still, fussing with the edges of sleeves and shirt hems and hair and hats, and not making eye contract. If Marie-Ange hadn't know better, she'd have thought that one of the two people sitting in her living room was a suspect in some sort of nefarious criminal activity.

It was just that the person who had occasionally committed nefarious crimes wasn't the fidgeter. Wade was fine - if looking slightly perplexed himself - at the other person's behavior.

Marie-Ange couldn't imagine what on earth Molly could've done - fifteen year old girls sometimes were nervous, she'd been one herself, but all the things that she could imagine - Molly wasn't doing yet. There weren't boys, or mischief with roommates (of the kind that involved alcohol and fake ID's), there weren't raunchy passages in romance novels (she hoped). So it probably couldn't be something Molly did.

Which meant it was either the location - which was possible, though unlikely - all of her creepier or risque art was stowed in her room, and the various spell supplies Amanda kept were tucked in cabinets and in Amanda's room. Or it was Wade, but he'd driven them here - or it was Marie-Ange herself.

"Molly? Should I apologize for something I have said?"

Molly had hoped no one would notice. When Wademan had suggested that they go to Mary Angie's to hang out she didn't want to say no because that was rude. And she'd also hoped that maybe things'd get better once she got there but they didn't, especially when she realized she had ran out of something...and only Mary Angie could help her. She only got more nervous. And Mary Angie was wearing WHITE. Which was also really creepy.

"No..." she said quickly, keeping her eyes on her hands. "I...need...to ask you for something. And...I'm...scared to talk to you even if I shouldn't be cause...of things."

Wade had no idea what was going on. He thought he was in for a night of movies and food with his two favorite ladies, only... apparently not so much with the enjoying either of those things. "Why... are you scared to talk to Marie-Ange?"

Oh, Wade talked. Taking a deep breath, she glanced up at him, biting her lip.

"Because...cause she was evil. Like....really evil. And...and when I see her I remember evil her and she's wearing white and evil her wore white like a knight but definitely not like a knight of good things and there was a lizard fish godzilla monster and she tried to kill me and Wanda with them," she said, stealing a look at Mary Angie very quickly as she spoke, letting out the breath with a huff like it was exhausting.

"I also need a pad. For girl things. I ran out. Can I please have one?"

She figured if she could add that in really quick like then maybe it'd be less embarrassing since everything else was already embarrassing.

"Well.." Marie-Ange was not often at a loss for words, but she had to pause for thought. "I can fix two of those problems. And then perhaps we should discuss the rest, because I do not recall being evil recently." She held up a hand in a "wait a moment" gesture and then hurried out of the room.

When she returned, after disappearing into her room, and making rustling noises in the closet, she had a different shirt, dark green with long fuzzy sleeves, and a pair of wrapped pouches, one larger than the other. "I am not sure which style you prefer, so I grabbed both kinds we have." And really, given how many teenage girls had been in the apartment lately, she made a note to stock up on a variety.

Molly stared at the pouches, glancing between the two of them. She was used to just one kind and neither looked like that. So she grabbed the littler one.

"Thank you," she added, then disappeared into the bathroom, returning a few moments later. The break from the talking had made her quiet again since she didn't know how to restart with 'you were evil! (but not really)'

Marie-Ange waited very patiently - by her own standards, which was not at all by most people's. Her patient waiting lasted long enough for Molly to fidget a little bit more. "Do you want to tell me about how I was evil? Was there something you remembered? Perhaps you had me mixed up with someone else?"

Molly looked a bit guilty as she picked up a coaster from the coffee table and turned it over in her hands. "It was definitely you," she said.

"You were Apocalypse's bad guy," she said. She frowned. "Death. One of the Horsepeople..." Cause Horsemen sounded weird if there were women in there too. Equal opportunity evil.

"It was in Rachel's world. The one the guy from Genosha made with a telepath lady," she said, nose curling.

"It wasn't real. But it felt real. You...you were really creepy." Her eyes lowered.

"Sorry."

Wade wasn't entirely sure what to do with that, generally speaking. On the one hand... well. Marie-Ange was really good at killing people. On the other... Apocalypse's Horseman, Death. "Well," he said, looking back and forth between the ladies. "That's awkward."

"Oh dear." Now was certainly the time to make a mental note to try to remember not to use the Death tarot card around Molly if at all possible. Marie-Ange's hands felt like they were everywhere for a moment, fingers busy trying to adjust the hem of her shirt, or pluck at the fold of skin between her thumb and forefinger or pinch at the fingertips of the other hand. "I do not at all know what to say that would help. I am certainly not interested in working for Apocalypse?" For once, her voice ended raised, as if she was not certain if what she was saying was appropriate.

Molly was silent for a few moments, thoughtful, then nodded. "Promise?" she said, holding out her pinkie. "Never ever evil Mary Angie. Ever."

She did not like seeing her friends be evil, or fake evil versions of themselves. What if they accidentally went evil for real and she thought they were fake? It made it confusing.

Marie-Ange's face almost crumpled. Of all the people she might have to lie to, the nearly innocent teenage girl who was probably one of the most genuinely good kids she'd ever met... she steeled herself - and then gave an almost unnoticeable shake of her head. "I cannot promise never ever, Molly. I can see the future but not that well, and there are so many things that could happen." Plus she did things that - by most people's accounts could easily be called evil. She'd killed - without remorse or second thought, more than once. "But I can promise you that I cannot imagine why I would ever be evil like that. That person was not me, at all." and she held out her pinky to meet Molly's.

Molly stared at Mary Angie's pinkie for a few moments, then finally hooked her pinkie with hers.

"No," Molly said, after she had time to think about it.

"Everybody that was evil was not real....or else....I guess...mind controlled evil. In their brain, y'know? Like Callie and Yvette. I guess....I guess I mean like...go evil for real. Like, you decide....'hey, I don't like that Molly Hayes or no body else so I'm gonna take over the world with flying zombie monkies,'" she said, then her eyes widened at the image in her head and got distracted before blinking a few times and remembered.

"Like that. Cause mind controlled evil is different cause you get controlled...so it's not you but its you in your body....but not in your brain. That seems to happen a lot. But real evil like....that's different. Hurting the people you care about like...for real. On purpose. Without a controlled brain."

"I am most certainly not going to take over the world with anything nearly as disgusting as zombie monkeys." Marie-Ange said. "I do not want to take over the world or be evil, and I cannot imagine why I would. So much work, so little reward." But then, apparently she - or a version of her - had. "I promise, no deliberate evil, and not hurting anyone without a good reason." Oh, but there was the clause - did anyone ever think they did not have a good reason. Magneto thought his reasons were the best possible reasons. "Were there really zombie monkeys? That flew?"

"No--" Molly said quickly. "There were fish-lizards. And a giant one that looked like Godzilla...Wanda cut it open and it made baby fish-lizards. But they weren't very cute. They tried to eat us. Wademan was there. He was with older me somewhere else...America I think. We...we did not nice things either."

She started to fidget again, then nodded.

"Okay....if...if you promise then good. But if you do accidentally....then I get to punch you, okay?"

Wade's eye twitched a little. Marie-Ange and her unfailing honesty about her capability for violence and/or potential villainess-hood. Molly and her belief that a good, hard punch could solve almost all problems, particularly of the villainess variety. Of course, he wasn't really one to talk, was he? He wished violence was the answer more often than not. It was so much simpler. "So I'm almost kind of hesitant to ask," he told the two of them, still looking from one to the other. "But since I'm a glutton for punishment where my ladies are concerned - what was I doing while all this was going on?"

"America," Molly said. "With older me. Not dead....whew. You guys didn't know each other very well....Mary Angie and you, I think. I think...maybe if they did the other Mary Angie would've have been as bad." She made a face.

"I don't wanna think about that stuff anymore. Can we get some food? Oooh, Chinese?"

"I think you are right. On both counts. Wade is very good at keeping me happy, and also I think we need cream cheese wontons and shrimp toasts." Marie-Ange suggested. "And mu shu pancakes." She glanced at one of the sketchpads that littered the apartment and a calico-colored imp climbed out of it, waved at Molly with a cartoony hand and then scampered into the kitchen to return with a folded menu. "The good bad Chinese restaurant delivers. Or we can walk there, and then we could get red bean and green tea ice cream. Sometimes they have black sesame as well."

"That stuff is like ink," Wade said, grinning. "At least I assume it is. I've never actually tasted it - does it make your teeth turn black? Cause that'd be kind of cool. Freaky, but cool."

"Can we walk?" Molly said, though she was distracted by the imp and held out her hands to see if she could pick it up. Then, after a moment, she curiously added.

" Beanice cream? Like jelly bean?"

"We can certainly walk." Marie-Ange answered. She sent the imp over to Molly to clamber up into her arms, sitting itself in lotus with the menu held out towards her. "No, red bean ice cream is really made with beans. They are sweet, and very bright red, but not like jelly beans, but also not like the kind of beans you might have with dinner. And no, black sesame does not turn your teeth black, but the paste might if you ate it alone. I do not know. The ice cream tastes a little like peanut, but sweeter."

"Bummer," Wade said. "It should totally turn your teeth black all the time or something."

Molly let out a happy squeal, gathering up the imp to carefully hold like he were a teddy bear.

"Like a zombie," she said. She might have watched a couple of episodes of the Walking Dead that someone had left on in the rec room. It was really creepy.

"Maybe there could be jelly red bean ice cream. If we eat it does it count as dinner since it's a bean? Like bean burritos and stuff? Cause I'm still really hungry."

"Black food dye does stain your teeth and tongue, but it turns them green." Marie-Ange offered. "Because black food dye is actually very dark green. We can get whatever dinner you like, my treat, for causing you distress. Have you had mu shu chicken? It is like a burrito, but Chinese food."

"Like the Joker," Molly said, making a face very similar to Wade's at the idea of not being able to have black teeth. She liked the idea of it as well. It could gross people out.

"Moo shoes?" she echoed, eyes widening. "Like cow feet?"

Grinning, Wade said, "We'll get some moo shoes because it is, in fact, like a burrito, only Chinese, and it is therefore doubly delicious."

"Mu shu." Marie-Ange corrected. "Like the dragon from Mulan. Who, in my opinion is the best Disney Princess, but I think Rapunzel comes in a close second."

"Wasn't her name not actually Rapunzel? I mean, the movie was called Tangled," Wade pointed out, grabbing his coat, Molly's coat, and Marie-Ange's coat as they headed for the door. "Besides, obviously Ariel's the best Disney Princess." He opened the apartment door, and gestured for the ladies to precede him with a flourish. The door closed behind them as they continued discussing the many varied virtues of Disney's many varied princesses.