Chapter 9: Act II: Down the Rabbit Hole
In his laboratory, Reed sat examining the symbols Cap had drawn and the prophecy Strange had given him. He knew there was some sort of connection, and he believed he knew what that was, but it was just confusing him, especially with how off the wall some of the symbols were.
"How are you doing?" Strange asked as he walked in, Cap not too far behind.
"Still trying to match up the symbols." Reed responded. "To recap, the qualities are precision, trickery, nobility, strength, love, poison, adaptation and other. Other isn't even a quality!"
"This seems to be trickier than we thought. Mind if we help you?" Cap asked. Reed nodded, and both Supers grabbed chairs to sit by him.
"Okay, so let's start with the obvious one." Reed began, writing love under the broken heart symbol.
"Ouroboros couldn't be more blatant with that one if he tried." Cap chuckled. "I wonder what it means, though. Something tells me it's about dead hero loved ones..."
"That's not a bad shout." Reed said. "But what about the others?"
"Hmmmmm..." Strange put a hand on his chin as he looked over the symbols. "I believe the storybook castle might stand for nobility, seeing as rulers in castles usually are noble."
"Good thinking Doc." Reed said as he wrote nobility under the castle. "This has something to do with the former institute, no bones about it."
"I still wonder what happens in there..." Cap sighed and shook his head. "Moving on, radioactive symbol must be poison. Radioactive materials tend to be poisonous to humans."
"The fist is strength. Punching is one of the ways people show how strong they are." Strange reasoned. Reed wrote poison and strength under the radioactive symbol and the fist respectively before glancing at the crosshair.
"Precision is one of the main skills required to fire weapons, so it must be connected to the crosshair." He wrote precision under the crosshair.
"Do you think that's the subgroup Punisher and Forge are connected to?" Cap asked.
"Might be, actually!" Reed said. "Right, three left, what do you reckon?"
"Ouroboros has proved he understands us and can adapt our dead comrades to his needs, so perhaps adaption is connected to the X-Men symbol." Strange reasoned. Reed wrote adaption under the broken X.
"The mask and gem reminds me of thievery, and one of the qualities employed in that type of crime is trickery..." Cap deduced, Reed writing it under its respective symbol.
"And that just leaves the weird scribbles and other." Reed finished, writing other under the odd lines.
"Now we know which symbols belong to which qualities, we have to figure out who these groups are and what they do. Punisher and Forge must be part of the group symbolised by the crosshair and Black Cat must be in the thieves group, but we'll need more information." He explained.
"We've got time to figure that out." Cap said. "Ouroboros seems to be hiding. That might mean he's building his forces."
Strange and Reed nodded, just as Iceman skated into the lab.
"Guys, Nightcrawler's missing." He said.
"What? How did he go missing?" Reed asked in concern. Bobby shrugged.
"Kurt said he was going to have a look near that castle to see if he could find anything that could tip us off on how to get in there." He continued. "Wolverine decided to send Gambit off to find him."
"Does he need any help?" Reed asked.
"Wolvie said to see how things go before we send backup." Bobby responded. "I'm sure he'll be fine... hopefully."
In a small dark alleyway lit by a single UV light, a van pulled in. The man in the passenger's seat got out and opened the back of the van, as two other men came out of a back door and helped him unload a bunch of boxes.
Suddenly, from seemingly out of nowhere, two hands came out of a wall and pinned the thug to it, as a woman in a black cat outfit with white hair jumped out and kicked his lights out. As the other two thugs and the van driver looked at her in horror, she pounded at them and a fist fight broke out.
While the cat lady was being attacked from all sides by fists and defending herself with some fists of her own, the body the hands belonged to, another female, passed through the wall and started placing the boxes into a portal she created.
Soon enough, the other three men had been knocked out, and Black Cat and Shadowcat high fived.
"That was easy!" Shadowcat giggled as she helped Black Cat move the remaining boxes into the portal back to their base.
"Indeed." Black Cat replied. "Where to next?"
"There's this old jewellery warehouse out in the country, I'm sure they'll have tons of stuff for us to take there!" Kitty recommended.
"That sounds excellent." Felicia said. "Show me on the map."
Kitty nodded and got the map out, pointing to the unmarked spot where she knew the warehouse was. Both girls smiled and prepared to head over there for more stealing.
"Où est-il!?" Gambit exclaimed as he explored the perimeter of the magical barrier protecting the castle. What was strange was the fields around the castle seemed untouched by the barrier.
Right now he was investigating a particularly woody area while keeping an eye out for Kurt or anything suspicious. Little did he know, a certain queen had her eye on him...
"Anyone there?" Gambit called, as he looked around from side to side, soon spotting something up ahead. It appeared to be a cottage that had a thatched roof, and a chimney that was puffing out small smoke clouds.
Walking up to it while still being alert, Remy knocked on the door.
"Anyone home?" He asked, before the door opened and he saw a familiar blonde that didn't help run Xavier's, with her hair in pigtails and a blue plaid dress.
"Bonjour, Paige..." Gambit let out a nervous chuckle. "Have you seen a blue man with a red unitard on?"
"Paige? I haven't heard of her, I'm Goldilocks. I think I saw a man matching your description pass by here a little while ago, was headed for the giant oak tree." Paige replied.
"Okay, thank you... are you sure you're Goldilocks? I thought you were Husk..." Gambit asked before he turned to leave.
"I always have been Goldilocks." Paige said as she waved him off, before shutting the door and running to a small mirror on a table. "My Queen, this weird man with a long pole showed up at my door and asked for a blue guy!"
"That's Gambit, Goldilocks. He was asking about Nightcrawler, who is at the Tea Party." Emma's image appeared in the mirror. "They're both nasty elder Mutants and the Mad Hatter and his guests will take care of them. Remember, there's no such thing as Paige or Husk."
Paige nodded. "What now?"
"Just be alert, and don't forget to eat your porridge before it becomes too cold." Emma reminded as the mirror communication shut off.
'She's right, I'm not that silly Paige woman!' Paige thought with a smile before she went to get her porridge.
