A/N: Again, sorry for the absence. Real-life is starting to bite me in the butt but I am resolving here and now to update at least once a week. Until then, the conclusion of Musical Maladies!
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"Can't we talk about this?" Dead Girl asked nervously as the mind-controlled crowd closed in around her and the X-Men.
"Ember! Ember! Ember!" Came the inevitable reply from the crowd.
"Man and they call me a zombie!" Dead Girl groaned.
"Hey!" A loud shout rang out. "Back away jabronis!" Kyle Wildfire yelled as he punched one hypnotized audience member in the face. "No one likes a tool!"
"Take it easy on them Kyle!" Jake shouted as he, Ace, and the Starr brothers leapt into the fray. "They're the victims here!"
"Better them than me!" Kyle shot back.
"Why aren't you guys hypnotized?" Dead Girl asked as she shoved another one away.
"Our powers," Paul explained. "Since my brother and I can hypnotize people, we have certain resistance to being hypnotized ourselves. Then we just used our powers to snap Ace, Jake, and Kyle out of it."
"Can't you do that to everyone else?"
"There's too many! We can't do that many at a time."
"Stop providing the exposition and fight!" Craig snapped at his brother.
"Still and all, it isn't too bad." Jake said. "Even if the numbers are against us, we're mutants and they're not."
"Um, don't be too sure about that." Ace gulped as he pointed at four girls who fought their way to the forefront of the crowd.
"Destroy the X-Men!" Monet shouted.
"I can't tell, has she been hypnotized or not?" Dead Girl wondered.
"Ember! Ember! Ember!" The Hellion girls shouted.
"Well, that answers that question anyway."
"I usually try not to hit a lady but in this case…" Paul said as he fired an optic burst from his right eye at Monet.
"Don't worry, she wasn't a lady anyway." Dead Girl assured him as M was knocked back into the crowd.
"Lightning Card!" Tarot shouted as she whipped out one of cards, discharging a powerful bolt of electricity.
"You play with electricity jabroni and you're gonna get shocked!" Kyle grinned as he manipulated and shaped the oncoming electricity into a giant bowling ball. With a grunt he sent it straight back towards Tarot.
"Striiiike!" He shouted jubilantly as Tarot and a dozen of the audience mind-slaves near her went down in a heap. "YOOOWW!!" Kyle then yelped as Catseye landed on top of him in her lion form. "Down Kimba!"
"Don't you mean Simba?" Jake asked.
"Don't start that again!" Craig groaned.
Catseye snarled at leapt at the small, battling band of heroes. "I don't suppose it would do me much good to ask you to remember that you normally don't hate us, right?" Dead Girl asked. Catseye swiped a massive paw at her that ripped what would have been a bloody gash across Dead Girl's chest. "Didn't think so."
"Hey, you! Yeah I'm talking to you, you no talent hack!" Craig bellowed at Ember as he leapt on stage with his guitar. "Why don't we settle this like musicians?"
"Because you're nothing but a poser!" Ember shot back as she hefted her guitar and swung it at Craig. Craig blocked it with his own guitar and responded with a blast from his eye.
"And you're nothing but a…ghost?" Craig asked as his optic beam went right through Ember without making a mark.
"You got that right!" Ember snickered, her ghostly ponytail waxing and waning like a flame. "The biggest sensation in either the mortal or ghost zones!" She adjusted a knob on her guitar and struck a cord. Craig's eyes widened as a giant fist materialized in front of him and punched him so hard he fell off stage.
"I'll handle her!" Dead Girl said as she leapt up stage. "You guys are on crowd control!"
"Easier said than done," Ace pointed out.
"If we use our powers we'll end up hurting innocent people." Jake said as he avoided being blasted by Roulette's bad luck energy.
"And if we don't they'll tear us apart and the X-Men right after!" Kyle shouted. The X-Men, still under Ember's influence, sat ramrod still in their seats; unmoving and unable to defend themselves. Ember had been entertaining the notion of forcing the X-Men to fight their would-be rescuers and then each other until Dead Girl arrived, demanding Ember's attention.
"Didn't you pay attention to the last loser who tried to tangle with me?" Ember sneered.
"One big difference between us," Dead Girl shot back as she tackled Ember. "I'm already dead!"
"Now Sharon, can't we discuss this like civilized feral-types?" Ace Starr asked as Catseye prowled around him. "You know me, remember?" Catseye sniffed the air once, then twice. Then she pounced on Ace and started…licking his face.
"I can't tell. Do you like me or just tasting me?" Ace said as Catseye perched on his stomach and continued licking his face.
"All of a sudden, I'm not that unhappy about him having all the luck with girls." Craig noted.
Ember, meanwhile, had managed to break away from Dead Girl and swung her guitar straight at her. Unable to avoid it, Dead Girl only winced as the instrument struck her head with enough force to break her neck. Fortunately, due to her mutation what would be a fatal injury for anyone else was a mere inconvenience for her.
"I may have a headache tomorrow, but you're going to have the beating of your after-life today!" Dead Girl exclaimed as she socked Ember in the gut.
"You still can't beat me, let alone all my loyal fans." Ember retorted as she swung her guitar at Dead Girl again. Fortunately it was inspiration that struck Dead Girl just then and not the guitar.
"Maybe I can't, but I know someone who can! Paul! Craig! Get up here!"
"What do you need?" Paul asked.
"To hypnotize the crowd!" She replied as she pinned Ember's arms behind her back.
"We already told you, we can't affect that many people at once." Craig snorted.
"You can with some help from the Jumbo-tron!" Dead Girl said as she pointed at the giant screen behind the band stage that blew up the images of the performers on stage so the audience in the back row could see them. Paul and Craig looked at each other and then ran in front of the TV camera. As they started using their hypnotic powers, Dead Girl managed to attract the zombies' attention by striking a chord on Ember's guitar. As the hypnotized audience looked up they saw the screen.
"No!" Ember cursed as she struggled with Dead Girl. "I'm the star here!"
"You've just been knocked off the charts!" Dead Girl said. "And I'm sure Forge can whip up a positron collider or something to take care of you!"
"Sorry but I've got other performances booked!" Ember snarled as she snapped her head back, slamming it into Dead Girl's face. Bones and cartilage cracked and even dead, the shock was enough to make Dead Girl loosen her hold. Ember began to phase in order to fly out and escape. Ember flew through Dead Girl on her way out.
As Ember passed through Dead Girl, a strange sensation overtook them both. Ember turned back as she exited Dead Girl and looked at her.
"No. It can't be…" She whispered as she flew off. Her ghostly band disappeared right afterwards.
"Well." Dead Girl said, stunned as the ghost rocker fled. "At least I know why I always liked Jim Morrison…"
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"You failed us Plasmius!" Pierce roared. "Your precious patsy Ember failed to destroy the X-Men!"
"Please." Vlad Masters snorted. "While I admit that relying on Ember to do the job proved unsatisfactory, the effort was not in vain."
"Why is that, prey tell?" Wilson Fisk grumbled.
"For one thing the video cameras clearly captured the so-called Superstars using mutant abilities against a human crowd. While the people in the crowd remember nothing, this is still useful material should we ever choose to expose or blackmail the Superstars. Tying this attack by mutants on humans to the X-Men will be a simple task as they were clearly associated with them. And best of all," Vlad smiled. "The X-Men weren't in any position to help the Misfits when my fellow White Pawn Destro sprang his trap on the Misfits."
"Indeed. Destro already has the pests imprisoned in his castle in Scotland." Leland noted.
Vandal Savage nodded and grinned. "The Misfits shall die and our plans will advance. It is a good day."
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A/N: Next time! The Misfits find themselves in Destro's clutches and are about to become part of a sinister experiment! Can the Misfits survive? Perhaps if they have a little…unexpected help!