66Been a while hasn't it? Lost my notes to this story, and my muse for it when on strike for a while. But I've been cycling back through my fandoms, and it's past time to dust this off and finish it up.
Panthera came out in a black stealth suit with her sword strapped to her back, followed by Althea with light blue hair, "Please, don't do us any favors." Panthera snarked, arms crossed.
"Wow, this was set all the way back to just after Evolution XMJ, so 2005-2006, but this was written in 2009 … how time flies." Althea stared at her script. "Uh, you know Red Witch went a different direction with me and the you-know-what, right?"
I'm well aware, it was mentioned in her review of that particular chapter. Now go into that youth machine so I can get you guys back in the story proper.
"Uh-huh, has it even been tested?" Panthera uncrossed her arms. "And we need to talk about this updated script!"
"It's safe, wait, does this mean I'm losing my tattoo? And my new hair color?" Althea paused looking up.
Oh for the love of- you didn't have them back then! Get going!
"ShivaVixen owns nothing but some of the Outcasts and this insane plot. She may also one day go back and rewrite this whole thing, but I wouldn't count on it." Panthera called out as she went offstage, pulling Althea who was scowling at the script.
Here we go, I thought we'd ease right in-
"Hold it right there, sister!" Deadpool entered. "I've looked at the script for this chapter, and you've left a huge plot hole, so I shall be taking over for the first part!"
Hey, just because you've got another mov-umph!
"That's better isn't it boys and girls?" Deadpool clapped his hands. "Now, I shall regale you with a very interesting tale. See, as you are all very aware I am a mercenary. Means I do all sorts of jobs for cash, usually very messy ones. Now, back when this fic first started, the author left a few poorly done breadcrumbs- the truth hurts lady!- and I shall now give you the pay off!"
He took a seat and projector came down.
"Now, remember that odd little IM conversation way back in chapter thirty-three, where I was rudely abandoned after I left to take care of personal business? Well that wasn't the end of the conversation." He spoke over the projection.
Ilikekilling1: Hello? Well, I guess I'll just go to the other chatroom.
ILikeKilling1 has logged out.
"Of course, I can't tell you the domain name, but it's very secure, very hush-hush … and I'm pretty sure the Illuminati-jokers use it. By the way, what do you think of how the trailer's show off Cable? Shiva is too lame to go see the movie proper and she only saw a couple of trailers. My bestie is such a bad-ass in them, I almost swooned- ah, here we go."
ILikeKilling1 has logged in.
Tomahawk has logged in.
Tomahawk: You're early.
CerebroX has logged in.
CerebroX: Apologies, I hope I'm not too late.
Tomahawk: Not at all. Deadpool, I trust what you have to say is important?
ILikeKilling1: Relax, it's not like anyone other than bored fanfictioners will ever bother reading this nonsense.
CerebroX: Deadpool.
ILikeKilling1: Yes, of course it is! Though why I'm doing this on a dying medium is poor writing on the author's part, I've got an interesting tidbit that there's a business in New York that I think your ninjas should check out …
"Yadda-yadda." Deadpool turned off the projection. "Kids, this would've made more sense if I texted them, or even sent them an email. Hopefully whenever the authoress gets the chance, she'll fix the glaring plothole. But back to me. Now, I'm a mercenary, I got rules, so why would I drop a line to the old warhawk and Baldie? Without some sort of pay? Well, other than being a plot device, I had an interesting encounter," He turned the projector back on.
"I'm walking on sunshine!" Deadpool was singing in the bath, off-key, wearing only his mask and strategically placed suds.
The projector turned off. "Whoops! Sorry about that. It's this one."
The Screen turned on to reveal Deadpool jumping across buildings.
"Now, me there has just had a bad run in with Thor over taking things that have anything to do with Norse history. Long story short, the crazy old cat-lady was actually the Norse Fertility Goddess and she needed the doohickey to break out of the human form she'd gotten stuck in thanks to Loki. But I digress, you see, I was running, heading towards the docks cause there's usually a poker game I can get in on, and the sailors don't mind someone joining in as long as they bring good alcohol."
The Deadpool on screen dropped down briefly into a liquor store and bought quite a bit of Tequila, Rum and a bag of limes, before running out and heading back up to the rooftops.
"So, I'm not looking for trouble right now, but I hear swords clashing and I got to at least see who's causing the trouble, right? Well, I don't see that. But what I do see is four characters with red eyes and nice hats that disappear."
On the screen were four men wearing Japanese straw hats, red scraves that covered the lower parts of their mouths that were somehow part of their capes and black bodysuits. Their belt buckles had the matching symbols. They promptly vanished.
"I knew instantly they were ninjas, but since I hadn't seen them around, I decided to snoop around a bit. Didn't have to go far."
There was a building that had an eastern style penthouse on top of it, and the same mark from the belt buckles acting as a sign. The Deadpool on the screen stared at it, and then looked back over his shoulder looking out of the screen. "Looks familiar?"
"Now, I'm thinking there's no way she's going to actually write these people in, but yep, she's adding in another cartoon group that started in the eighties and got revamped in the early 2000s." He turned off the projector. "So now that I've explained my involvement, I'm going to go bother someone else in this Misfit Fandom. Have fun with the rest of this fic!"
In the New York City sewers, Calisto greeted the members of the morlocks living there, or at least, one group of them- the New York Cty Morlocks were scattered through sewers and abandoned subway tunnels, and generally kept to groups of twenty or less in order to keep from being detected. Not to mention to avoid any other vagrants and homeless people that also ended up below ground.
"Calisto, it's been a while child, come here, sit with me." An old African-American woman patted the slightly molded cushion next to her. She gave a brief yawn that showed off fangs and a forked tongue. "Jacques saw what happened, we've been waiting for you to get here."
"Thanks Grandmother." Calisto sat down with a small smile. The old woman insisted on being called grandmother, but no one actually knew her name, or even if she had one. "It's been a long trip."
"I bet. Still, if you were hoping for peace and quiet, I'm afraid you won't get much here. Superheroes up there, mechanical monsters down here." Grandmother picked up a very odd robot, it looked like a miniature t-rex. "Supposed to have been for destroying the rats down here, darn things nearly killed us."
"Was actually thinking of heading to Maine." Calisto sighed. "Anyone else I should be aware of?"
"Any and all Animal-like mutations can't leave the safety of our block. Got some idiot big game hunter convinced there's a giant crocodile somewhere in the sewers, been giving trouble to anyone that looks different. Oh, and new gang going around, calling themselves the purple dragons, they just target anyone and everyone. Actually had a cop arrest one down here for trying to harass us into paying protection fees."
"What?!" Calisto jerked up.
"Relax, she was one of the ones that left us for the surface, sad to say she's not likely to come back, her brother went missing down here, she's convinced there's a legal way to find whoever kidnapped him." Grandmother shook her head. "That one was always too headstrong for her own good."
"…" Calisto paused. "You wouldn't happen to have a photograph, would you?"
"Jacques, get my bag."
Jacques had a long tail instead of two legs. With a soft huff, he grabbed the bag Grandmother gestured to, before turning back to staring at a crystal ball.
"Here, this is him."
Calisto closed her eye. "I'm sorry to say he's dead. There was a mutations lab … some Military pets discovered it, and the X-men have been trying to find out who the bodies were."
"That's gonna break her heart." Grandmother sighed. "Let's move on to more important things, we've got some cots and blankets set up already."
At the Xavier Insititute, Torpid was shaking. She wasn't sure why they weren't going back to the sewers, or why she had to take a bath. Her cuts were all bandaged up, and Kitty and Tommi's baby were sleeping in the infirmary beds next to hers.
Kitty was weird, she was an X-man, therefore just barely above being a pet according to Zip and Zap, but she kept coming back to the sewers to help them out. Torpid never understood why she didn't just stay, it was obvious she didn't want to be on the surface anymore.
Then the monster with swords started cutting everyone, and Kitty had grabbed her phasing just in time to avoid the sword. Tommi had chosen to protect her baby instead of dodging, and Kitty had scooped up the baby just before the monster could stab her too. Calisto had yelled at Kitty to take them and run, but Torpid didn't know what happened after that.
"Mm. Torpid? You okay?" Kitty had woken up while Torpid had been lost in her memory.
Torpid shook her head, and pointed to the ground.
"Oh, I'm so sorry …" Kitty looked upset. "Didn't they tell you?"
Torpid shook her head. She'd made sure to ignore everyone that tried to ask her questions, though Beast was nice, she just wanted to go home.
"Torpid … the surviving Morlocks left you and the baby in our care … they left after the attack."
Torpid shook her head. The Morlocks didn't leave anyone behind. She pointed to the ground again.
"Oh, Torpid …" Kitty's voice broke. "They couldn't stay after the attack, it wasn't safe … Caliban and a few others are missing."
Torpid shook her head again, and once more pointed to the ground.
"Torpid, I'm so sorry, they didn't say where they were going …" Kitty tried to stand up and move over to her bed, but she yelped and fell to the ground. Torpid panicked. She hadn't noticed that Kitty had bandages around her chest. She scrambled down from her bed and tried to pick Kitty back up. Kitty instead wrapped her arms around her. Torpid froze, she wasn't sure about this hug, but Kitty wasn't letting go, and Torpid couldn't lift her. "I'm so sorry, I just ran back to the only other place I could think of as safe, I didn't mean to get you separated from Calisto and the others."
Torpid shook her head, but she knew that wasn't going to do much good right then.
"I promise, we'll find Caliban, he'll know where they went, and you two can go find them together, alright?"
Torpid had to think about it. She wouldn't be able to find the others without help, and Kitty was too injured to do so. Waiting to find Caliban would be the safest option, and then Torpid would make sure Kitty would come back with them to the underground with the baby.
Torpid nodded, which made Kitty smile.
"So, Tommi and Evan were pretty mum on the name, but I'm thinking we call the baby Ariel until she can pick one herself, what do you think?" Kitty asked with a small smile.
Torpid nodded again.
"Great, now I need to call Beast, and once he clears me, I can show you around. I think you'll like meeting Lockheed, he's my pet dragon, and I know places where you can hide if the insititute gets too much."
Meanwhile at the Pit, Panthera was regretting agreeing to let Lifeline be the one to check over her mind. Jean might have been a better choice … except then Xavier would have been involved. Psyche-Out had somehow convinced her (she wasn't even sure how, one minute they were talking, and the next, he was calling Leatherneck and Lifeline) to at least go over a couple memories today.
"Right, so we're going to start with the beginning- not you being adopted, but when you were kidnapped. Lifeline will just be a passive observer, and you'll just tell us what you remember, alright?" Psyche-Out asked. Panthera grabbed Leatherneck's wrist, suddenly feeling a little childish.
"Ready?" Lifeline asked, and very gently touched her temple at her nod.
"I was late to slumber party because I was having trouble with my homework…"
"Sweetheart, you're a smart girl, there's no reason why this 99 percent can't be a hundred." Her father lectured about her report card, and little Naomi just glared at the stupid homework she had to redo just because her handwriting was too messy. It wasn't even like she had the worst handwriting in the class, that was Jack!
Finally her father cleared her to leave, and she grabbed her bag. Selena had already gone over, and the sun was just starting to set, if she was lucky they'd still have snacks.
"I bolted out of there pretty quick, Mom yelled something after me, but I wasn't paying attention."
"Be home by eleven tomorrow morning! And don't you dare forget your contacts!" Naomi didn't react, she just ran towards the end of the street, as she slowed down to turn, she noticed a weird van. It passed her, so it was probably just a service van. She turned down the next street, and that's when she heard the van behind her.
"There was a van that drove by, I dismissed it as a service van, but when I turned down another street it pulled infront of me. Men got out."
One Crimson guard, four Cobra soldiers, Naomi tried to run, but something tangled her legs, made them hurt- a bolas.
"I tried to run but they tripped me up, then two of them grabbed me and threw me into the van."
"What happened once you were in the van?"
Naomi was upset, so upset that she didn't scream or cry, she snarled, biting the first one that got close enough, he was going to tie her hands, her claws came out, barely even an inch then, she cut the tangle around her legs and tried to run again … only the door was closed and they were moving.
"Damnit, just old her down so we can tie her up! She's a kid!"
"She bit me!"
"I bit the first guy, got my legs free, but they'd already closed the doors and we were moving. I got mad."
Naomi bit and clawed each one that tried to pin her down, one lucky hit knocked out a contact. There was a lot of yelling and growling. Eventually they got her partially pinned again, but this time when she lashed out, her claws went through a man's throat, severing the jugular. He fell with a weird noise, and Naomi froze in shock.
"She killed Fred 325!"
Killed? That was Bad, her parents would not be happy, she broke the rules.
"I killed one of them on accident, I froze up."
"Why did you freeze up?"
Panthera paused. "I had previously scratched a boy in first or second grade on the neck, my parents weren't happy about that, or the fact we were fighting, I had a lot of rules after that, but there was never a clear punishment if I broke them. I didn't want my parents finding out I accidentally killed someone while fighting."
"Alright, what happened next."
"Move." One of the men lifted something, and then there was pain and everything went black.
"They knocked me out."
"Alright, we won't go into your time in the lab, but how did you get out?"
"Trickster, I'd been sent to solitary, he followed."
"Someone get me out of here!" A frantic viper holding a tray pounded on the bars.
"If this is some kind of trick, mutie-" Another started as he and his partner entered the cell block.
"No Trick, the little bastard locked me in here and took the keys- look out!"
Naomi snarled and attacked one, aiming for the throat. Another figure took out the other, grinning and picking up several keycards as Naomi picked up the gun.
"You freaks aren't going to escape!" The viper in the cell yelled. Naomi shot him.
"Nekome, why'd you?" Trickster had a metal x welded to his collar bone, he was thin with dark hair and but his face seemed to keep melting into other features.
"Why does he look like that?"
"At the time, the drugs they gave him made it difficult to concentrate for very long, he couldn't focus on staying in one form for longer than a few minutes." She gave a wry chuckle. "We didn't need that long."
"What happened?"
"That'll buy us some time. Let's hurry." Naomi quickly took the uniform from the viper Trickster had taken out, while Trickster changed form. "We have to get the kid and get out of here."
"I don't want to remember anymore." She pulled away, and Lifeline let her.
"Alright." Psyche-Out agreed. "I'll see you next week."
Leatherneck and Panthera headed back to the Den, but ended up getting cut off by the ground suddenly lurching underneath their feet.
"What the- Now what's going on over there?!" Leatherneck grumbled.
"Don't look at me."
"Right, well, How do you feel about learning some constructive demolition tomorrow?"
"Sounds good to me." Panthera grimaced slightly.
"Something wrong?"
"Nah, just trying to push something off for as long as possible, or until I can figure out what to say that won't make me sound crazy."
"If you need help, you can ask me."
"I know, thanks!"
A blurr shot through the area, followed by the sounds of yelling.
Okay, a note on the Morlocks- Bayville is supposed to be where exactly in relation to New York City? It's not 'far' but I'm guessing it's still a few hours away, and I always thought Xmen Evo had the Morlocks under Bayville, not New York City proper. Which is why I have Callisto moving the Bayville group into the NYC sewers here.
"That and she can't remember where exactly the Morlocks were in Red Witch's fics, so like with her mistake with Cypher, she's trying to justify her using the whole Alternate Alternate Universe route to herself." Panthera stormed out with Scott.
Uh, what are you doing?
"The revised script you gave us? We took a poll. You have to either bring back Beach Head or Pyro in the next chapter." Scott waved the script. "You've had them missing for way too long."
"Speak for yourself! I'm over it, I don't have to deal with insanity!" Beach Head snapped as he entered, Scott just passed him the script to look over. Beach did a double take. "This better be a joke."
Next Chapter: Some Training, a mystery, and a few Dead Joes!
"WHAT?!"
