x_project | Because Rossi requested we share

These are the two drabbles I wrote for her book.

Demon Gates and Stay Puft Marshmallow Men

By Seraph

“Lee?”

The question crackled across the earpiece still attached to her ear. She was somewhat surprised, considering the depth of the hole she’d fallen down.

“Hmph,” she groaned.

“You dead?” Amanda’s voice came again, head popping over the lip of the hole, a concerned look apparent.

“No, although don’t quote me on that, kay?” Jubilee replied, prying her fingers from the rope that had saved her from more serious injury. The other end of the rope stretched upwards to come to a stop in a loop attached to Amanda’s waist.

“Find anything interesting?” Amanda asked, as she turned and started climbing her way down to where Jubilee now lay.

Jubilee felt around underneath herself, and then pulled out what looked like a human scapula that had been poking her in the left buttock. “Just the usual,” she responded with a wrinkled nose before throwing the bone as far away as possible. It made a clacking sound as it bounced off the pile and settled against the far wall.

Amanda and Jubilee had been exploring a local derelict warehouse where reports of ‘monsters’ picking off local street dwellers were rife. Some of the descriptions had pinged on Amanda’s ‘demon sense’ as she liked to call it, and she’d quickly found a description of the type of beast they were looking at in an arcane text she’d managed to acquire off EBay.

It had surprised Jubilee, but Amanda had been familiar enough with the practice to be unfazed. It would seem that you really could find just about everything on the Internet somewhere. She’d spent a rather interesting afternoon with Illyana and Amanda after that being shown the various hotspots for those of magical inclination. It was an education in both the bizarre and inane. For every real magician or witch out there, there were a dozen fakes and charlatans.

Amanda reached the bottom of the hole and began pulling debris off Jubilee, moving aside the larger pieces of wood with a grunt until she could finally pull the other girl free.

“So, come here often?” Jubilee quipped, brushing dirt from her pants legs.

“All the time,” Amanda quipped back, the hair on her neck begging to stand up as she noted the stink of demon was much stronger now. “Me an warehouses, we’re like this, yeah?” she finished, showing crossed fingers on one hand in an easily recognisable gesture.

Jubilee snorted and started looking through the pile of bones she’d landed on, if they were lucky, somewhere in here there’d be an ID.

Meanwhile, Amanda was already on the radio to Illyana, asking the other girl to let the team know what they’d found.

“Fuckin’ looks like the bastards have been havin’ a right smorgasbord fer years,” she muttered as Pete’s voice came across the link, asking for details. “Don’ know if it’s what we’re lookin’ for yet, but I can smell ‘em.”

“Bingo!” Jubilee crowed holding up a semi decayed handbag from deep in the pile. She waved it in Amanda’s direction in a meaningful way.

“Oh no, don’t even think ‘bout it, Lee” Amanda replied, hands up to fend off the gruesome find. “You found it, you search it. Deals a deal, right?”

“Yeah, but dude, I was completely wasted at the time, only way I’d have agreed ta come on this magic mystery tour,” Jubilee grumbled, opening the handbag and gingerly sorting through its contents.

Amanda rolled her eyes and picked her way through the debris to the more solid stone floor beyond; they appeared to be in the basement of the warehouse, one of them at least. It was a rather large, pitch black basement at that and Amanda had a very bad feeling about all that black space, a very bad feeling.

“Oh, so gross,” Jubilee cried, dropping the old used tissue to the ground. “Who the hell keeps used tissues in their purse?”

“Little old ladies, fanatic environmentalists?” Amanda answered distractedly having noted a line of softly glowing sigils in the darkness. A Hell Gate here, but then why hadn’t there been a bigger invasion already?

“Little old lady, guess I owe you a beer, Mandy.” Jubilee said tone softer now, a grim expression showing in her gaze as she held up a social security ID. “What sort of stone cold bastard kills an eighty two year old granny?”

“A demon,” Amanda replied simply, bringing up her flashlight and wincing as the light reflected off what she was expecting, an almost solid scrimmage line of humanoid looking demons. “Get the fuck up here, Lee, looks like we stumbled into the entire fuckin’ nest.”

“This is all because I wished that kid’s mother would get the pox, isn’t it?” Jubilee complained, coming to stand beside Amanda, power already arcing over her fingers in a multi-coloured display.

“We all wished the pox on that cow, Lee. She was a fuckin’ bitch, an treated her kid like shit.” Amanda replied, slipping the torch into her belt before pulling up a shield spell around them both. Depending on how many there were, and it looked like a lot, it might not last long but she was hoping the others would get here before the situation turned dire.

“Pete, we’ve got a situation normal,” she growled into her mike, trying to keep the shake out of her voice. Sometimes knowing what you were up against was as much a curse as a blessing, and Amanda knew demons.

“All fucked up,” he answered not a second later.

“And nowhere ta go. I’m shieldin’ but there’s a lot of ‘em down here,” she said, watching as Jubilee’s first volley of plasma sparks lit up a section of the line.

“We’ll be there soon, Remy an Illyana are closest. I’m sendin’ ‘em your way.” Pete replied, radio crackling with the sound of running steps.

What followed was long and brutal, Amanda concentrating on her shield while Jubilee took the offensive. It could be said they’d come a long way from their teenage years, working seamlessly together.

Some time later, Amanda and Illyana stood before the portal while Jubilee, Pete and Remy stood in a tight semi-circle, keeping their foes at bay.

“What’d you think?” Amanda asked Illyana, eyes moving across the sigils quickly.

“Inelegant and amateurish, it was probably a dabbler, probably a dead dabbler.” Illyana stated tone dispassionate, the sort you might use discussing what was for dinner, not the one normally associated with demon gates to hell.

“They forgot the last sigils, stupid bastards” Amanda said, pointing out the gap she’d just noticed in the runes. “They knew ta limit the type, an how many could come through at any one time, but they forgot to close the fuckin’ thing off.”

“Not exactly surprising, demonologists are not what you would call the most intelligent of the arcane practitioners, or stable. I think it has something to do with all the scribbling in small letters in the dark; it does something to the human mind. Either that or perhaps their mother’s didn’t hug them enough as children. Dr Phil always seemed very firm about the hugging.” Illyana murmured, stepping sideways as a splash of gore sailed past Remy and hit the brick wall not meters from the two girls.

“Nice shot, Gumbo, disgusting and gross, but nice.” Jubilee shouted over the screams of the dying beast. She ducked under a slashing claw, watching as one of Pete’s hot knives buried itself in its eyeball, sizzling softly.

“We need to shut it down,” Amanda said, smiling at the ongoing commentary over their shoulders.

Illyana nodded, and fished in her pockets for a moment, before pulling out a gently glowing piece of chalk. She stepped forward and studied the runes for a moment before reaching out and scrawling several small sigils in the gap that had been left.

The circle glowed brighter for a moment before going dark, and Amanda quickly moved to catch Illyana before she could fall.

“I’m fine, just slipped on the rubble,” Illyana slurred, too weak to really struggle against Amanda’s hold.

“Uhha, an I’m the bloody Stay Puft marshmallow man,” Amanda muttered, looping an arm around Illyana’s waist and hauling the girl to her feet.

“Funny, you don’t look like you’re made of marshmallow.”

A Man Of The People
By Seraph

Yvette placed the flowers carefully, before placing an apple squarely in the middle of the arrangement. It had been some time since she'd had a moment to visit but it would appear that someone else, perhaps their oft times taciturn grounds keeper, was regularly looking after the site. She read again the epitaph that had been carved out of the snowy white marble.

'A good man is not soon forgotten, his dream shall live on in us'.

::Professor?::

She turned, looking up at the young man standing somewhat nervously behind her. Billy was one of the new students, she'd talked to his parents only last week about getting him into some of the advanced classes. He was a brilliant boy, unfortunately held back in his last school by the nature of his mutation. She hoped he would find an environment more conductive to learning while he was here.

"Yes?" she answered, the lilt of her accent giving evidence of her origins even though her command of the English language had long since improved.

::Mr Marko wanted to know if you wanted to go with him to pick up the new student.:: Billy said, his telepathic 'voice' much improved after working with the telepaths on staff. When he'd first come to them, his voice had been so loud they'd barely understood anything he said.

"Thank you, Billy. Please tell Mr Marko that I will be there shortly." Yvette replied, turning back to the grave.

She'd been surprised when Scott Summers had first offered her the position of Headmistress to Xavier's Institute. As a Professor of Anthropology with an honours in Mutant studies, she'd had many fine offers over the years but the chance to work at the school that had been such a great part of her young life had been irresistible. She'd been on the first plane back to the US within hours of receiving the offer.
It was the least she could do now for the people who had helped her grow into the confident and strong woman she now was.

"Thank you Professor." she said softly, before turning to follow Billy.
It was up to the next generation now, to follow Professor Charles Xavier's dream.