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xp_logsFor Betsy Braddock, Emma Frost, Logan, Molly Hayes, and Pixie, fear is in the eye of the beholder.
Molly adjusted her braided pigtails and straightened her Wednesday Addams dress as she pulled out her cell phone to use as a flashlight. The house they were in was as huge as the mansion (if not bigger), and definitely more creepy. She felt like she were in an episode of Scooby Doo, or a horror movie. Some time after getting to the party/haunted house she'd gotten separated and had been wandering around for the past few minutes.
Up ahead, she saw a familiar group of people from the mansion, however. So things were looking up!
"Hey! People I know! See anything creepy and/or kooky yet?"she said with a grin.
Emma looked back at the source of the voice and did a barely noticeable double take. She reached out with her telepathy and confirmed her first impression: that Molly’s mind and new (old?) physical forms didn’t match.
“Molly,” she said, to the pig-tailed girl in front of her. “I haven’t seen you looking like for... quite some time.” Emma sighed. “This is going to be another one of those Halloweens, isn’t it? Do we vote for magic spell, mad mutant or mental mischief being responsible this time around?”
"Wait, what?" Molly said, blinking. "What are you talking---" Reaching into her bat purse that she had reserved for pale makeup touch ups and a Snickers bar, she also pulled out a compact mirror to get a look. "Oh," she said, letting the words drop a moment before her eyes widened. "OH. Oh no." She was a teenager again. Not 23, but definitely young enough to look like Wednesday Addams for real.
She covered her face. "Pleasedon'tbepermanent. Pleasedon'tbepermanent. Um...All of those are reverseable, right? Whatever it is?"
“They mostly seem to sort themselves out,” said Emma, reassuringly. She frowned as her phone buzzed in her pocket, the tone the one that indicated it was from a Mansion resident. Emma fished the phone out of the invisible pocket (where its slimline design didn’t alter the fabulous lines of her dazzling white suit) and read the message from Jean quickly. She sighed and then continued her reassurance to Molly.
“It looks like it might be magic. Again. Demons, to be completely accurate.” She lifted the image of the page from Jean’s text, sent it into the heads of everyone in the group. “It looks like we need to find one of these items to solve the problem. Jean says to look for all of them, but most specifically the ring. And then find everyone else, reverse the binding or whatever, fix Halloween, party some more. I mean is there ever a Halloween where we don’t end up battling demons? Or spells? It all makes me quite nostalgic for good old fashioned dinosaurs sometimes.”
Betsy had a brief moment of reminiscence about a time in her life when she could go out without needing to worry about magic. Then she reminded herself of what her life actually was like before Muir and sighed. “Right, let’s look for this ring then. Upstairs, maybe? It wouldn’t happen to emit a green glow or something to make it easier to find, would it?”, she asked hopefully, then paused. “Umm, does anyone else feel tha-” Her words were cut short by a tiny throwing star hitting the wall inches from her nose.
Logan normally didn't do much on Halloween that involved going out. It was just easier to stay in and find fun in scaring the kiddos that knocked on the mansion door as the mansion usually went all out on the decorating front. He wasn't in anything fancier than jeans and a t-shirt. "Hah, if only. That'd make things too easy for us," Logan said.
He immediately ducked and darted toward the nearest corner in case there were more throwing stars headed their way. "Case in point."
"Great ninja costume. Wait, that was real!" squeaked Pixie. She was dressed in a black long-sleeved leotard that she'd sewn earlier that week. A headband sporting cat ears completed her feline costume. "Hey, get over here! Tell us where to find the ring!" she shouted in nervous impulse, then leaped to quickly avoid another projectile that served as a reply.
Molly eyed a rather large bronze bust of some old dude, then thought very loudly toward Emma.
~If you tell me where they are, I can throw this at them.~ She tilted her head. ~Y'know...I'd miss their head of course.~
"Of course," said Emma and felt where the ninja was, based on their mind, which had an oddly familiar flavour. Emma shrugged, having got far too used to Halloween shenanigans. She sent the ninja's coordinates to Molly and watched in satisfaction as the bronze bust went heaving past her and nearly onto the ninja, who retreated with a squeak.
"I think we should go up,” Betsy said, pointing at nearby steps. “I haven’t seen another staircase so if we kept an eye on these ones they would not be able to sneak up on us. Besides, we've seen most of this level and there has been no sign of this ring so far… Maybe we’ll have better luck upstairs? We’d just need a way to get up without them attacking us from behind…”
Logan had made his way closer toward the steps, using what cover he could find. No further ninja stars seemed to be coming their direction, but that didn't say much. He frowned as his nose picked up something that shouldn't be possible. Braddock was behind him so why was he smelling her from further up the hallway and from the stairway. "Somethin' ain't right. I'm gettin' Betsy's scent from multiple directions. Not sure if they're coming from the ninja--"
He cut off as multiple throwing stars came whistling his way as he dove for the large potted plant nearby.
Pixie crouched down next to Logan. She lost sight of the ninja as she disappeared around a corner but, trusting Logan's senses, followed his lead as they carefully made their way upstairs.
They were suddenly in what appeared to be the mansion's basement. The more she looked around the darkened room with no windows, the more it resembled a hospital or lab. The florescent lights overhead that weren't busted out were flickering, illuminating metal tables and shelves full of medical instruments.
It had to be some trick of the demon magic, but it looked real. It has the uncomfortable smell of antiseptic, too, reminding Pixie of hospitals. She suddenly felt a bit sick. "Do you smell Betsy in here? Or the ninja?" Pixie asked, turning, but Logan was nowhere to be seen. She was alone. A light came on in a large water tank at the far end of the room. A person was suspended in the fluid, hooked up to all kinds of machinery that did gods-know-what.
"Logan?!" Pixie started toward him. The room got longer with each step while the walls pushed in closer, threatening to suffocate her. Wall monitors flickered on as she moved past them. She glanced up at them and realized that one was measuring her heartbeat - which was now getting faster and faster. X-rays of her chest appeared on another monitor, clearly marking the demon magic that had replaced part of her soul. She refused to look anymore and flew the rest of the way towards Logan, knocking down equipment in her haste.
"Oh gods." She pounded on the glass, frantically searching for the mechanism that would release him.
One moment Logan was tracking the multitude of Betsy scents up the stairyway. The sooner they found the source the sooner they could figure out how to get out of here. The next moment he was submerged in liquid, tubes and wires plugged into his skin, and a breathing mask attached to his face. He flailed in the liquid. It was water pumped full of drugs.
It was all too familiar. He remembered this all too well. His first real memories, the ones he'd started building a life upon. He struggled, kicking and punching, only sending waves of water over the sides of the tank. He howled his rage into the mask, yanking as hard as he could to dislodge the wires from their anchors. The water turned red from his thrashing and all he felt was the needles digging into his skin, the electrical pulses spasming his body.
His claws were useless in the water. Unable to gain leverage, unable to pull himself in the directions he wanted, he was a lab rat trapped under a glass slide.
Meanwhile, definitely not where Pixie and Logan was, Molly Hayes was also definitely confused.
"I, wait, what? What did he mean by smelly multi-Betsys?" she said, flashing a sheepish grin. "Sorry! Not that you smell but...that he smells...you. From everywhere. Uh...how is that possible?"
“I don’t really know what to tell you. As far as I know I am the only me here,” Betsy replied. “Maybe my shampoo is very popular with ninjas?” She looked around to Logan for clarification, then realised the scruffy man was nowhere to be seen despite having clambered up the stairs just ahead of her. “Umm, any of you happen to see where Logan went?"
“Probably to another dimension. Or maybe plane of existence,” said Emma dryly. “Judging by previous Halloweens. Also, I suspect we have more than one Betsy around at the moment. Judging by what I felt and Logan smelled. Is there any reason you’d be likely to be a ninja, Betsy? Metaphorically, literally, representationally?”
Betsy looked uncomfortable. “I… am not particularly fond of them. The opposite of fond, in fact. Bad childhood experience. I do not think there is any reason for me to be a ninja.” She was being mostly sincere. “I wouldn’t call myself particularly agile, either, or otherwise ninja-like. Then again, as far as I understand you are not usually twelve years old,” she gestured at Molly.
Molly slowly nodded at Betsy. Yeah, she was totally hiding something.
"But I used to be 12, though. You gotta admit there are a lotta puzzle pieces that look the same--" A bullet ricocheted off the wall above Molly's head, causing her to yelp. Thick boots marched using a soldiers' cadence as a pair of soldiers dressed in uniform came down the stairs. Molly's face blanched white, her breath stolen.
"Halt, mutant! By order of Genosha!" one said, their focus trained solely on Molly as they headed her way.
She seemed to forget she had the ability to benchpress a house and quickly backed up, shaking her head back and forth.
“Molly,” said Emma, clearly but not sharply and moved quickly, shifting into her diamond form as she interposed her body between Molly and the soldiers. “If they shoot, you’re safe. I’ll keep you safe. You made it through this before, you can do it again. But if you can find something and throw it at them very hard and very fast, I would appreciate that,” Emma said, as a number of bullets cracked off her ribs. “This outfit is too damned expensive to have remade without the bullet holes.”
Molly didn't answer her for a moment or two, clenching her eyes shut. She drew in a few shaky breaths, and eventually stopped shaking her head. Her hand balled into fists. "Okay...okay...I....I...can do this. I can do it," she said, her eyes snapping open as they started to glow purple.
A moment later, another bust (what was up with that?) went flying at the Genoshan soldier, knocking him off his feet with a cry of surprise. He dropped his gun and it skidded to the ground.
He held up his hands as Molly and the group walked up to him, but then turned his attention to Emma and her glittering form. His eyes softened. He smiled, going down on one knee.
"Will you marry me?"
For the first time in a very long time, Emma was genuinely taken by surprise.
“Will I…? Marry you?” she squeaked (and it was definitely a squeak). “I most certainly will NOT marry you!” she said and then took the opportunity of his sudden crestfallen slump to knock him out with a diamond fist. “The impertinence of the man! Marry him! What kind of nightmare have we unleashed this year?”
“It’s definitely something. And he didn’t even have a ring for you,” Betsy pointed out. “Talking of, we really need to find the magic one. And Logan and Pixie too. Which would be much easier if these guys“ — she whirled around to aim a very uncharacteristic high kick to knock out the ninja creeeping up on her from behind— “would stop. Trying to. Interfere!"
###
Meanwhile, Pixie jumped back from the tank as Logan began to thrash in the liquid. She fired a spell to break the glass, but it bounced off harmlessly, breaking some equipment behind her. So much for that.
Pixie took a couple deep, calming breaths. "None of this is real! I'm going to get you out of there," she said, then added to herself, "OK, get it together, girl. It's just demon magic. It's true, you do have demon magic inside of you." There was a snapping sound as a wall monitor shorted out and went black. "We're not going to die here just because Dad died in a hospital," she continued softly, allowing bad memories of the months spent in hospital rooms to blossom and wilt in her mind instead of burying them. There were more sounds of equipment powering down. Soon, the only thing in the room functioning was the tank. There were no buttons, switches or valves to release it from the outside. That meant...
"Logan! Let go! You can free yourself!"
Logan barely heard Pixie's voice through the water. Her voice sounded like it was coming from miles and miles away. Even with his enhanced hearing he still had to strain to make out her words. He stilled when he processed her words. Let go? Let go of what? There was nothing in the tank he was holding onto. He was struggling to get away from it all. He snarled into his breathing mask and yanked at the wires again. Nothing gave. Nothing felt like it was working.
He shook his head and stared into the murky water as he made himself take deep breaths and hold still in the water. This tank and this lab and everything about it had been destroyed a million times over. It shouldn't exist and everything here was just a product of whatever messed up place this haunted house had turned into. He closed his eyes and tamped down on his instincts, breathing slowly in and out. The wires began to fade until they disappeared completely. The needles and their drugs and their hurts did the same until there was nothing there but the faint outline of a water filled tank. The mask over his face disappeared too and then Logan was standing with his feet on the floor, dressed as he had been and dry as a bone. He swiped his claws at the lingering shadow as he stepped through it and toward Pixie. "Let's get the hell out of here."
"I couldn't agree more," said Pixie, heading for the stairs. "We still need to find the ring," she realized, glancing around the room which was starting to look more like a regular attic than a lab or hospital.
As Pixie opened the door to leave the room she'd hear the sound of footsteps coming up that were far heavier than the body they belong to: Molly.
"Dude, there you guys are! Hey, I found them!" she said, calling over her shoulder.
"We were looking all over for you!"
"The house likes to play tricks," Logan said. He didn't want to go into detail about what had happened. Better to focus on what was going on right now than that. Shadows pooled all over the attic, obscuring what could be hiding in them. "Think it's safe to say that the attic probably ain't where the ring is. Anythin' happen on your end that might tell us where this damn ring we're looking for is?"
"Not really. Several more ninjas, and there was a man who tried to shoot Molly before deciding to propose to Emma," Betsy summarized before thrusting out her arm to grab the bo staff of another lunging ninja and driving it to their belly. "There hasn't been a chance to explore much with all the interruption, but I agree that this room does not look too promising. Too bad rings don't have a specific scent to them."
Molly stood there blinking as Betsy casually just beat the shit out of another ninja. She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again.
"Um...should we talk about what all these weird things keep happening? Like that. That is a very weird thing," she said, pointing to where the ninja was but had suddenly disappeared.
"Ninjas and...marriage proposals are...not quite what you'd see in a haunted house, y'know? I mean...I--I think I have a theory on mine." She glanced down to herself, then back around.
"I've always been scared of what happened in Genosha happening again. And I was 13 when it happened so...suddenly I'm 13. Maybe there's a reason?"
"Could we shortcut the whole thing if I just propose right now?" Logan wasn't sure how vital the ring was to this whole thing, but he wasn't interested in looking around the attic much for it. Someone else could have that fun. Logan turned toward Emma and even bent down on one knee. "Would you marry me, Ms. Frost? Just so we can get the hell out of this place."
Emma narrowed her eyes and stared at Logan for a minute. "Who said romance was dead?" she said, her voice dripping with snark. "But yes, if we get past the sense of humour behind those who are obviously commenting on my perceived commitment-phobia - and yes, I see you demons and no, I am not amused - then for the sake of a ring and a quickie divorce, I’ll marry you, Logan."
"Time and a place for romance and this mansion from hell ain't it," Logan said as he rose back to his feet and gave her a bow in return. "'ppreciate it. We're exactly on the same page for this to work for the both of us." He looked back out into the shadowed depths of the attic. "Someone got a spell or shortcut to find us that stupid ring to get this over with."
“This is magic,” said Emma, tapping a diamond fingernail against her cheek. “And I know the rules of magic don’t always follow the rules of magic, but let’s see if they follow the rules of story,” and with a sudden reach of her power, she changed the scene around them. Logan’s outfit changed to a tuxedo, Betsy was a bridesmaid, Pixie a flowergirl and Molly was rather surprised to find herself as a celebrant, as a radiant Emma, in the kind of slinky white gown that was clearly straight from the catwalk, walked down the “aisle” of the attic, which had transformed into something rather more celebratory.
Emma followed the stately procession of Pixie and Betsy down the aisle until she stood beside Logan, who gave her a very steady look and then shrugged. She figured he was the same as her - if it worked, it’d do. And then Molly was speaking the usual words (helpfully supplied directly into her brain by Emma) and Logan was taking her hand and repeating “with this ring...” and taking his hand out of his suit pocket, looked down in surprise as the ring that he was holding.
“With this ring we get the hell out of here,” said Emma and the world...
Snapped.
Molly adjusted her braided pigtails and straightened her Wednesday Addams dress as she pulled out her cell phone to use as a flashlight. The house they were in was as huge as the mansion (if not bigger), and definitely more creepy. She felt like she were in an episode of Scooby Doo, or a horror movie. Some time after getting to the party/haunted house she'd gotten separated and had been wandering around for the past few minutes.
Up ahead, she saw a familiar group of people from the mansion, however. So things were looking up!
"Hey! People I know! See anything creepy and/or kooky yet?"she said with a grin.
Emma looked back at the source of the voice and did a barely noticeable double take. She reached out with her telepathy and confirmed her first impression: that Molly’s mind and new (old?) physical forms didn’t match.
“Molly,” she said, to the pig-tailed girl in front of her. “I haven’t seen you looking like for... quite some time.” Emma sighed. “This is going to be another one of those Halloweens, isn’t it? Do we vote for magic spell, mad mutant or mental mischief being responsible this time around?”
"Wait, what?" Molly said, blinking. "What are you talking---" Reaching into her bat purse that she had reserved for pale makeup touch ups and a Snickers bar, she also pulled out a compact mirror to get a look. "Oh," she said, letting the words drop a moment before her eyes widened. "OH. Oh no." She was a teenager again. Not 23, but definitely young enough to look like Wednesday Addams for real.
She covered her face. "Pleasedon'tbepermanent. Pleasedon'tbepermanent. Um...All of those are reverseable, right? Whatever it is?"
“They mostly seem to sort themselves out,” said Emma, reassuringly. She frowned as her phone buzzed in her pocket, the tone the one that indicated it was from a Mansion resident. Emma fished the phone out of the invisible pocket (where its slimline design didn’t alter the fabulous lines of her dazzling white suit) and read the message from Jean quickly. She sighed and then continued her reassurance to Molly.
“It looks like it might be magic. Again. Demons, to be completely accurate.” She lifted the image of the page from Jean’s text, sent it into the heads of everyone in the group. “It looks like we need to find one of these items to solve the problem. Jean says to look for all of them, but most specifically the ring. And then find everyone else, reverse the binding or whatever, fix Halloween, party some more. I mean is there ever a Halloween where we don’t end up battling demons? Or spells? It all makes me quite nostalgic for good old fashioned dinosaurs sometimes.”
Betsy had a brief moment of reminiscence about a time in her life when she could go out without needing to worry about magic. Then she reminded herself of what her life actually was like before Muir and sighed. “Right, let’s look for this ring then. Upstairs, maybe? It wouldn’t happen to emit a green glow or something to make it easier to find, would it?”, she asked hopefully, then paused. “Umm, does anyone else feel tha-” Her words were cut short by a tiny throwing star hitting the wall inches from her nose.
Logan normally didn't do much on Halloween that involved going out. It was just easier to stay in and find fun in scaring the kiddos that knocked on the mansion door as the mansion usually went all out on the decorating front. He wasn't in anything fancier than jeans and a t-shirt. "Hah, if only. That'd make things too easy for us," Logan said.
He immediately ducked and darted toward the nearest corner in case there were more throwing stars headed their way. "Case in point."
"Great ninja costume. Wait, that was real!" squeaked Pixie. She was dressed in a black long-sleeved leotard that she'd sewn earlier that week. A headband sporting cat ears completed her feline costume. "Hey, get over here! Tell us where to find the ring!" she shouted in nervous impulse, then leaped to quickly avoid another projectile that served as a reply.
Molly eyed a rather large bronze bust of some old dude, then thought very loudly toward Emma.
~If you tell me where they are, I can throw this at them.~ She tilted her head. ~Y'know...I'd miss their head of course.~
"Of course," said Emma and felt where the ninja was, based on their mind, which had an oddly familiar flavour. Emma shrugged, having got far too used to Halloween shenanigans. She sent the ninja's coordinates to Molly and watched in satisfaction as the bronze bust went heaving past her and nearly onto the ninja, who retreated with a squeak.
"I think we should go up,” Betsy said, pointing at nearby steps. “I haven’t seen another staircase so if we kept an eye on these ones they would not be able to sneak up on us. Besides, we've seen most of this level and there has been no sign of this ring so far… Maybe we’ll have better luck upstairs? We’d just need a way to get up without them attacking us from behind…”
Logan had made his way closer toward the steps, using what cover he could find. No further ninja stars seemed to be coming their direction, but that didn't say much. He frowned as his nose picked up something that shouldn't be possible. Braddock was behind him so why was he smelling her from further up the hallway and from the stairway. "Somethin' ain't right. I'm gettin' Betsy's scent from multiple directions. Not sure if they're coming from the ninja--"
He cut off as multiple throwing stars came whistling his way as he dove for the large potted plant nearby.
Pixie crouched down next to Logan. She lost sight of the ninja as she disappeared around a corner but, trusting Logan's senses, followed his lead as they carefully made their way upstairs.
They were suddenly in what appeared to be the mansion's basement. The more she looked around the darkened room with no windows, the more it resembled a hospital or lab. The florescent lights overhead that weren't busted out were flickering, illuminating metal tables and shelves full of medical instruments.
It had to be some trick of the demon magic, but it looked real. It has the uncomfortable smell of antiseptic, too, reminding Pixie of hospitals. She suddenly felt a bit sick. "Do you smell Betsy in here? Or the ninja?" Pixie asked, turning, but Logan was nowhere to be seen. She was alone. A light came on in a large water tank at the far end of the room. A person was suspended in the fluid, hooked up to all kinds of machinery that did gods-know-what.
"Logan?!" Pixie started toward him. The room got longer with each step while the walls pushed in closer, threatening to suffocate her. Wall monitors flickered on as she moved past them. She glanced up at them and realized that one was measuring her heartbeat - which was now getting faster and faster. X-rays of her chest appeared on another monitor, clearly marking the demon magic that had replaced part of her soul. She refused to look anymore and flew the rest of the way towards Logan, knocking down equipment in her haste.
"Oh gods." She pounded on the glass, frantically searching for the mechanism that would release him.
One moment Logan was tracking the multitude of Betsy scents up the stairyway. The sooner they found the source the sooner they could figure out how to get out of here. The next moment he was submerged in liquid, tubes and wires plugged into his skin, and a breathing mask attached to his face. He flailed in the liquid. It was water pumped full of drugs.
It was all too familiar. He remembered this all too well. His first real memories, the ones he'd started building a life upon. He struggled, kicking and punching, only sending waves of water over the sides of the tank. He howled his rage into the mask, yanking as hard as he could to dislodge the wires from their anchors. The water turned red from his thrashing and all he felt was the needles digging into his skin, the electrical pulses spasming his body.
His claws were useless in the water. Unable to gain leverage, unable to pull himself in the directions he wanted, he was a lab rat trapped under a glass slide.
Meanwhile, definitely not where Pixie and Logan was, Molly Hayes was also definitely confused.
"I, wait, what? What did he mean by smelly multi-Betsys?" she said, flashing a sheepish grin. "Sorry! Not that you smell but...that he smells...you. From everywhere. Uh...how is that possible?"
“I don’t really know what to tell you. As far as I know I am the only me here,” Betsy replied. “Maybe my shampoo is very popular with ninjas?” She looked around to Logan for clarification, then realised the scruffy man was nowhere to be seen despite having clambered up the stairs just ahead of her. “Umm, any of you happen to see where Logan went?"
“Probably to another dimension. Or maybe plane of existence,” said Emma dryly. “Judging by previous Halloweens. Also, I suspect we have more than one Betsy around at the moment. Judging by what I felt and Logan smelled. Is there any reason you’d be likely to be a ninja, Betsy? Metaphorically, literally, representationally?”
Betsy looked uncomfortable. “I… am not particularly fond of them. The opposite of fond, in fact. Bad childhood experience. I do not think there is any reason for me to be a ninja.” She was being mostly sincere. “I wouldn’t call myself particularly agile, either, or otherwise ninja-like. Then again, as far as I understand you are not usually twelve years old,” she gestured at Molly.
Molly slowly nodded at Betsy. Yeah, she was totally hiding something.
"But I used to be 12, though. You gotta admit there are a lotta puzzle pieces that look the same--" A bullet ricocheted off the wall above Molly's head, causing her to yelp. Thick boots marched using a soldiers' cadence as a pair of soldiers dressed in uniform came down the stairs. Molly's face blanched white, her breath stolen.
"Halt, mutant! By order of Genosha!" one said, their focus trained solely on Molly as they headed her way.
She seemed to forget she had the ability to benchpress a house and quickly backed up, shaking her head back and forth.
“Molly,” said Emma, clearly but not sharply and moved quickly, shifting into her diamond form as she interposed her body between Molly and the soldiers. “If they shoot, you’re safe. I’ll keep you safe. You made it through this before, you can do it again. But if you can find something and throw it at them very hard and very fast, I would appreciate that,” Emma said, as a number of bullets cracked off her ribs. “This outfit is too damned expensive to have remade without the bullet holes.”
Molly didn't answer her for a moment or two, clenching her eyes shut. She drew in a few shaky breaths, and eventually stopped shaking her head. Her hand balled into fists. "Okay...okay...I....I...can do this. I can do it," she said, her eyes snapping open as they started to glow purple.
A moment later, another bust (what was up with that?) went flying at the Genoshan soldier, knocking him off his feet with a cry of surprise. He dropped his gun and it skidded to the ground.
He held up his hands as Molly and the group walked up to him, but then turned his attention to Emma and her glittering form. His eyes softened. He smiled, going down on one knee.
"Will you marry me?"
For the first time in a very long time, Emma was genuinely taken by surprise.
“Will I…? Marry you?” she squeaked (and it was definitely a squeak). “I most certainly will NOT marry you!” she said and then took the opportunity of his sudden crestfallen slump to knock him out with a diamond fist. “The impertinence of the man! Marry him! What kind of nightmare have we unleashed this year?”
“It’s definitely something. And he didn’t even have a ring for you,” Betsy pointed out. “Talking of, we really need to find the magic one. And Logan and Pixie too. Which would be much easier if these guys“ — she whirled around to aim a very uncharacteristic high kick to knock out the ninja creeeping up on her from behind— “would stop. Trying to. Interfere!"
###
Meanwhile, Pixie jumped back from the tank as Logan began to thrash in the liquid. She fired a spell to break the glass, but it bounced off harmlessly, breaking some equipment behind her. So much for that.
Pixie took a couple deep, calming breaths. "None of this is real! I'm going to get you out of there," she said, then added to herself, "OK, get it together, girl. It's just demon magic. It's true, you do have demon magic inside of you." There was a snapping sound as a wall monitor shorted out and went black. "We're not going to die here just because Dad died in a hospital," she continued softly, allowing bad memories of the months spent in hospital rooms to blossom and wilt in her mind instead of burying them. There were more sounds of equipment powering down. Soon, the only thing in the room functioning was the tank. There were no buttons, switches or valves to release it from the outside. That meant...
"Logan! Let go! You can free yourself!"
Logan barely heard Pixie's voice through the water. Her voice sounded like it was coming from miles and miles away. Even with his enhanced hearing he still had to strain to make out her words. He stilled when he processed her words. Let go? Let go of what? There was nothing in the tank he was holding onto. He was struggling to get away from it all. He snarled into his breathing mask and yanked at the wires again. Nothing gave. Nothing felt like it was working.
He shook his head and stared into the murky water as he made himself take deep breaths and hold still in the water. This tank and this lab and everything about it had been destroyed a million times over. It shouldn't exist and everything here was just a product of whatever messed up place this haunted house had turned into. He closed his eyes and tamped down on his instincts, breathing slowly in and out. The wires began to fade until they disappeared completely. The needles and their drugs and their hurts did the same until there was nothing there but the faint outline of a water filled tank. The mask over his face disappeared too and then Logan was standing with his feet on the floor, dressed as he had been and dry as a bone. He swiped his claws at the lingering shadow as he stepped through it and toward Pixie. "Let's get the hell out of here."
"I couldn't agree more," said Pixie, heading for the stairs. "We still need to find the ring," she realized, glancing around the room which was starting to look more like a regular attic than a lab or hospital.
As Pixie opened the door to leave the room she'd hear the sound of footsteps coming up that were far heavier than the body they belong to: Molly.
"Dude, there you guys are! Hey, I found them!" she said, calling over her shoulder.
"We were looking all over for you!"
"The house likes to play tricks," Logan said. He didn't want to go into detail about what had happened. Better to focus on what was going on right now than that. Shadows pooled all over the attic, obscuring what could be hiding in them. "Think it's safe to say that the attic probably ain't where the ring is. Anythin' happen on your end that might tell us where this damn ring we're looking for is?"
"Not really. Several more ninjas, and there was a man who tried to shoot Molly before deciding to propose to Emma," Betsy summarized before thrusting out her arm to grab the bo staff of another lunging ninja and driving it to their belly. "There hasn't been a chance to explore much with all the interruption, but I agree that this room does not look too promising. Too bad rings don't have a specific scent to them."
Molly stood there blinking as Betsy casually just beat the shit out of another ninja. She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again.
"Um...should we talk about what all these weird things keep happening? Like that. That is a very weird thing," she said, pointing to where the ninja was but had suddenly disappeared.
"Ninjas and...marriage proposals are...not quite what you'd see in a haunted house, y'know? I mean...I--I think I have a theory on mine." She glanced down to herself, then back around.
"I've always been scared of what happened in Genosha happening again. And I was 13 when it happened so...suddenly I'm 13. Maybe there's a reason?"
"Could we shortcut the whole thing if I just propose right now?" Logan wasn't sure how vital the ring was to this whole thing, but he wasn't interested in looking around the attic much for it. Someone else could have that fun. Logan turned toward Emma and even bent down on one knee. "Would you marry me, Ms. Frost? Just so we can get the hell out of this place."
Emma narrowed her eyes and stared at Logan for a minute. "Who said romance was dead?" she said, her voice dripping with snark. "But yes, if we get past the sense of humour behind those who are obviously commenting on my perceived commitment-phobia - and yes, I see you demons and no, I am not amused - then for the sake of a ring and a quickie divorce, I’ll marry you, Logan."
"Time and a place for romance and this mansion from hell ain't it," Logan said as he rose back to his feet and gave her a bow in return. "'ppreciate it. We're exactly on the same page for this to work for the both of us." He looked back out into the shadowed depths of the attic. "Someone got a spell or shortcut to find us that stupid ring to get this over with."
“This is magic,” said Emma, tapping a diamond fingernail against her cheek. “And I know the rules of magic don’t always follow the rules of magic, but let’s see if they follow the rules of story,” and with a sudden reach of her power, she changed the scene around them. Logan’s outfit changed to a tuxedo, Betsy was a bridesmaid, Pixie a flowergirl and Molly was rather surprised to find herself as a celebrant, as a radiant Emma, in the kind of slinky white gown that was clearly straight from the catwalk, walked down the “aisle” of the attic, which had transformed into something rather more celebratory.
Emma followed the stately procession of Pixie and Betsy down the aisle until she stood beside Logan, who gave her a very steady look and then shrugged. She figured he was the same as her - if it worked, it’d do. And then Molly was speaking the usual words (helpfully supplied directly into her brain by Emma) and Logan was taking her hand and repeating “with this ring...” and taking his hand out of his suit pocket, looked down in surprise as the ring that he was holding.
“With this ring we get the hell out of here,” said Emma and the world...
Snapped.
