New Mutants: Scribblenauts - Pastiche

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

Angel checks in with her firefighting and EMT buddies and Artie and Pixie pull a fast one on some police officers so that no one gets blamed for this mess.



It was pretty much a typical post-disaster area. The people who hadn't managed to desert the area completely were wandering around looking lost and confused, markers and paint cans rolled along the concrete, and the sound of approaching sirens echoed through the air.

"Hell," Angel mumbled, dragging her fingers through her hair. She wanted to get the kids out of there, or at least keep the cops from talking to them. They'd had enough problems for the day without dealing with possibly bigoted cops too.

Pixie inhaled sharply as a couple of cop cars pulled into the plaza. She was never good at looking inconspicuous, but she flattened her wings against her back and did her best to look like a normal citizen. Glancing around nervously, she relaxed her breath when she recognized one of the X-Men - hey, an adult! But two officers were already heading their direction and she didn't think they could reach Angel before being intercepted. "What do we say if they ask us questions?" she asked Artie.

He flashed text at her, small and discrete. "Keep your wings down. Look harmless" It was a pity that it was warm enough that he hadn't worn a jacket, so he didn't have anything he could thrown over Pixie's shoulders to hide the damn wings.

The officers reached them and Artie held up his phone and hit 'speak' on two of his pre-recorded phrases. "Good afternoon. I'm afraid that I can't talk, but I can use my phone to help." There was a pause before the second phrase played. "My name is Artie." He was the picture of a frightened, innocent college student who was nearly hysterical with shock after the events of the afternoon. The officers shared a twin look of 'what the fuck', both of them clearly unhappy with the situation. Mutants. Dangerous ones and now, now, there were more mutants.

He held up one hand, in the universal signal for 'wait' and typed "Is it safe? There were monsters. They came out of the pictures! I almost got eaten!"

Angel perked up when she saw a familiar face get out of one of the fire trucks. "Paul!"

The man turned, smiling when he saw the exuberant redhead jogging towards him. "Where there's trouble. So what've we got here Angel?"

"Oh just your standard paintings coming to life and trying to eat people." She shrugged. "Injuries are surprisingly minimal considering the way everyone was running about, I had an aerial view for a bit, if you head south from here there's a small group, mostly scrapes and bruises, they're all covered in paint too for obvious reasons but no one looks too worse for wear."

"Good to know." Paul motioned for his men to head off in that direction and check out the injured. "And you just happened to be here, huh?"

"Well you know me - love art. Can't get enough of it."

"Seems it was quite the show. What were you two doing here?" asked the woman cop. She didn't seem overly impressed, her gaze flickering from Artie, then back to her partner, then to Pixie. The winged mutant fidgeted. They were getting looks from passers-by. Some had even stopped to snoop.

"Yeah, is it safe? What happened? Was it mutants?" someone asked.

"I've been here all day - I have a booth," Pixie waved in the general direction of her booth. She looked nervously to the man cop, who was answering someone on his radio. "We're students."

"And what school do you go to?" asked the first cop, ignoring the small crowd around them.


Pixie looked to Artie, trying to remember if he was enrolled in any college classes outside of Xavier's. Her lips started to form the word 'Xavier's'.

Artie cut her off with a wave of his hand to get the cop's attention and fingerspelled Empire State University as fast as he could. It was incomprehensible. That was the point.

"Oh, jeez, I can't speak... hand. What is that? Can you ... translate for him?" There was a pause and then, directed at Pixie, "Does your friend understand me if I talk to him?"

He repeated it, this time on the synthesiser. "I'm art student. I do painting. I can hear you, I just can't speak. It's a throat problem."

The cop looked relieved and followed up with "What happened here?"

Artie held the phone in one hand and signed an explanation. It was beautiful. It was visual. People came and went and screamed and fell, as the monsters broke out of the paintings. It went right over their heads, just as he'd intended.

"What? Can you translate for your friend?"

Pixie shrugged helplessly. "We were over at my booth, so we didn't see how it started. All of a sudden, a bunch of monsters started coming out of the paintings. People started running and screaming. It was crazy. We're lucky we weren't trampled or eaten by monsters."

"Alright," the second cop said flatly. He said something into his radio again. Pixie wondered if it was cop code for "monsters" or maybe "lying mutant kids."

"Can you identify the paintings?" asked the first cop.

"Ah, it was a bunch of them? Just generally, around, it seemed like." Pixie answered, gesturing vaguely. "We couldn't really see where they were coming from."

Artie nodded emphatically. He wondered if squeezing out a tear would be overkill. Probably. Girls cried when they were upset. Boys... not so much, regardless of how harmless and college studenty they were . He typed frantically. "They came out of three paintings that I saw. I didn't see where the rest came from." He pointed at a still life, a pop art piece and the torn remains of a poster on the ground. "Those ones."

The cop said something else into his radio and Artie touched one hand to Pixie's shoulder. "Sir? Can my girlfriend and I go home?" He looked plaintive. "These things..." He switched to signing for a moment, explaining that they'd almost been eaten and how horrible and terrifying it had all been and by god, he was annoyingly difficult to communicate with as far as these police were concerned. He pulled the synthesiser out and began to type again. "They almost ate us. Ate us. And all of her work was ruined. Can we go home? Please?"

Another mutter into the radio that ended with "....know anything" and the cop turned to face them. "I need some ID. We'll take your details for later."

Artie nodded and handed over his driver's licence. It said he lived in Queens.

"Of course." Pixie smiled a small smile, letting her tongue show a little bit between her teeth. She'd heard this made girls look innocent. No idea if it worked on cops. "I'll never get my artwork back," she said, smile fading and eyes misting over slightly. "It was terrifying."

The other officer was already examining the paintings, prodding the edge of one carefully with her baton as if it might bite her, saying something about getting an evidence team. Meanwhile, Pixie looked helpless and distraught - she really was worried about the cop running Artie's license, but he just handed it back and took hers.

"Alright, you two can go," said radio cop, giving them one last condescending look over. He really didn't have time for these annoying know-nothing kids.

"Thank you, sir." Pixie grabbed her "boyfriend's" arm and walked away. She thought she briefly made eye contact with Angel, but now wasn't sure if she wanted the cops to see them with an X-Man. She didn't want to solidify the Xavier's connection and trace this back to Ishmael.

"Well, I need to salvage what I can from my booth."

Artie wrapped his arm around his not-girlfriend's shoulder for a moment, giving Pixie a half hug. "Tomorrow," he said, typing. "We'll do it tomorrow. We're going home now, officers."