Reprinter's Note: I didn't write this. This issue is courtesy of an old friend, lifeisacabaret! Give'em a hand! Whoo-hoo! Yay! Life!
Ok...on with the story. All this is property of Marvel.
Spice Up Your Life!
'I've had it up to here with little girls trying to help. I just wish they'd all die after figuring out a way to stop the future. Stupid guy getting captured and disappearing. I hate getting dragged into things,' Wolverine whined as he came traipsing in the morning after. 'I hate futures. Here Pixie you go and find someone to help you stop it from happening.'
'Yay! A mission. Now who will help me,' Pixie asked generally. No one volunteered so she asked the Cuckoos to find her someone who would help her. She found Spice.
Pixie appeared. 'Who are you? What are you doing here? How did you find me? Why did you find me? So that's who, what, how and why. Now a question involving when and one involving where. When did you find me? Where did you find me?' Spice all but shouted at her.
'Well I'm Pixie. I have wings and I excrete particles or something which influence emotions. I can also teleport and I have 'soul dagger'. I'm here to find out what a blip on Cerebra was. And it turned out to be you. This all happened about five minutes ago. I thought there'd be more security. Oh and Wolverine disappeared. He then reappeared babbling about something not being his business, girls in pyjamas and the world being in trouble.'
'Where are we? And you gave way too much detail. Maybe you'll learn. Now can I help with this so called problem? It's not a major thing though. I'm sure I've done worse than what could be happening. What's the problem?'
'Some lab or something. I wasn't really paying attention to what the people who helped me said. He started babbling about the future being in danger because of the Registration Act and a guy who disappeared and I was sent to pick you up and we go confront this threat. I don't know. Nobody tells me anything nowadays.'
'Let's go. I need to go back to my flat. It's all the way in London. Do you think you can manage that? I hope you can. Then I'll come back here and start searching with you. You can see through your portals can't you?'
Pixie somehow knew where to go for Spice's apartment and the two girls entered. Spice grabbed some juggling balls and some stress balls. 'Why did you pick those up?' Pixie asked naively not knowing anything about the person she was with.
'Well I like to juggle and I get really stressed from time to time. I find the stress balls help. They're drug company ones.' The two girls then went through the portal back to New York outside a TV shop. They saw the news report.
'A building on 32nd Street has been destroyed today. Luckily nobody was inside when it suddenly started to collapse. The cause of this is so far unknown but it is probably due to a hero fight. In other news the notorious villain self-named Spice has escaped from prison today. She managed to subdue the guards with no trouble and then managed to escape out. If you see her call the number that appears on your screens now and report where you saw her. Here is a picture of her.' A picture of her flashed up on the screen. 'That is all for now. Until next time. Good bye.'
'You're a super-villain. I guess I should stop you. What did you do to be branded as that?' Megan asked stupidly.
'I'm not a super-villain. I wanted a bit more money so I could pay rent and bills and buy food. I don't know why I came here to steal. I decided to go into a bank and rob that. It didn't work. My powers failed miserably. And there's no need to stop me or report me. I'm helping you remember,' Spice said to Megan. To herself she said, 'She's quite slow isn't she. Yes, yes she is. Where's my precious. Your precious? That ring that she keeps going on about. I'm not crazy. I think you've got more than one personality.' That carried on for a few minutes getting steadily less creepy.
'Are you alright? Shall we go there? Are you Sporty or Baby Spice? Or maybe Scary or Posh or Ginger? Why do you want to help?'
'I'm fine. We shall but on the way I want to stop at a glass shop and a fabric shop. I have a plan. Don't ever ask me that again if you want to be able to survive past the age of 20. I have my reasons. And it's not just revenge for once.'
The two girls headed off towards 32nd Street stopping at a fabric shop and a shop which sold cheap glass. They continued walking and as they did so Spice started to grind the glass up and make bags out of the fabric. She started to pour the glass into the fabric with a combination of spices which complement each other. She tied a string around the fabric so they were in balls which would easily burst open. A few minutes later they reached 32nd Street.
'Well here we are and nobody is inside. There was a man here who liked spicy food and a girl who had spicy food stuck to her clothes. That could be the girl in pyjamas he was waffling about. Based on the disturbances in the spice I can find out that they fought and then the guy disappeared. He still has a unique trace of spice though. I know it sounds strange as well that I know all that from a bit of spice but I do. I think we passed the man a few roads back,' Spice gathered from spices.
'Great now we have to backtrack. Why can't I use my powers? Why do you have to stop me from using them? Stop stopping me. I hate you. You're making me not use my powers.'
'Stop whining you little brat and open up a portal for us to use. I don't care who finds out that I'm here anymore. Not now I know who's involved. I mean the least he could have done was write to me in prison but no. He had to go and join the bloody Avengers. Well how the tables have turned.'
'What do you have against Wolverine?' Pixie questioned opening the portal.
'Nothing. I lost my train of thought. In fact we should head into this building. That's where the trail is leading us.'
The two girls entered the building Spice pointed to. The lights were all off. The building was silent. Then a cry sounded from the next floor. They went up the stairs. Creak, creak, creak. A thumping noise was heard. Pixie started to panic. She tried to run. Spice created a wall of spice blocking her exit. They entered the room they heard crying from. Then they saw him.
Martin was curled up as much as his body would let him. The blood dripping off his face was hitting his lap. The drip, drip, drip of the blood falling onto the floor was eerie in the silent building. They went to inspect Martin further. Martin's nose was swollen and his arm looked bent into an impossible shape.
The door slammed shut behind them. 'Well, well, well. What do we have here? Two curious little girls it seems. You know what they say. Curiosity killed the cat. It looks like it'll get two kittens now. I know who you are, Pixie. But you. You are new. I hadn't planned for your interruption. In my time I guess you must have died and been a nameless nobody who disappeared after one attempt.' The shadowy figure said stepping out of the shadows.
'Nobody calls me little or a kitten or a nobody or nameless. I have very low self-esteem already I don't need the remainder crushed by some psychopath from the future who doesn't know what he's doing. I'm going to show you that this kitty has claws. Wow I didn't help myself there. It's bad practice to merge metaphors though. So I guess I'll leave it. I'm happy to be a spanner in your works.' Spice asked while slowly diffusing different spices to search the room.
'I'm scared. I want my mommy. I mean that I'm here to try and help.' Pixie said attempting to sound tough.
'Oh look at the tough little girls trying to form a plan to combat me. Pixie's right. You should try to run. Oh wait you can't. There's one exit from here and this building is protected against magic. So try summoning your dagger and you'll fail. You can only use your dust.' The man taunted while staying in the shadows. He got out a knife.
The spice started to swirl faster and faster leaving the two girls and Martin in the eye of the storm. A voice started to sing.
Happiness is just a state of your mind,
Keep searching who knows what you may find,
Rules are for fools, and fool's paradise is hard to find,
Play my game or get left behind,
It's you I know that I have got to feed,
Take from me what you feel that you need,
You feel that you need.
We've got something kinda funny goin' on,
We've got something kinda funny goin' on,
We've got something kinda funny goin' on,
We've got something kinda funny goin' on.
The spice started to move faster as the voice accelerated up towards the end ignoring how it should have gone speed-wise. The man then leapt out but Spice sensed what he was doing and pushed Pixie out of the way and managed to get one of the balls filled with spice and glass out. She side-stepped and threw it in his face. It missed his eyes.
He recovered and started heading towards her again. She started juggling first with two balls then she started with three and did Mill's Mess for a bit while using the spice in the fabric to raise the fabric balls and attack. She then started doing Tiger Claws and started heading towards the man with spice coating his knife dulling it and making it useless. She reached him and then started scratching him while juggling. He tried to fight back but he was being restrained. He teleported away the same way taking Martin with him.
Martin managed to ask Pixie to write a note. It said 'You must stop him. He will be the downfall of us all. You must also stop the Registration Act. Both of these will force heroes to become virtually non-existent. By the way I like how you two work together. I think that you could be a great team. Just you need to become a bit more dominant Pixie. I have to say that you aren't going through to the next round Spice though. It was lovely hearing you sing but I'm afraid that it just wasn't good enough.'
The two girls then opened the door and found it unlocked. They inspected the door. There was no way it could have been locked. They felt stupid. They left the building and then headed off down the street to continue their quest on finding out the cause of this. They got bored after five minutes and decided to exchange e-mail addresses and phone numbers so if Pixie needed her again she could call.