Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Mmm… Hot Pockets!

A Few Hours Later

"What are you doing?" Asked one Jean Grey as she came across Webber 'Arcade' Torque in one of the rooms of the lower levels of the destroyed Institute that contained computers.

Ones that Hank himself had gotten put in and was intending for them to be used as learning tools for any of the students. A huge bruised knot could be seen on Jean's forehead thanks to the wrench that had been thrown at her. Her ears were still ringing from the yelling she'd gotten from Taryn and hers wasn't the only ones ringing either due to Storm having lectured everyone about the way things had been handled. Even worse, the whole thing had been recorded and was all over the news by now. "Making a certain Receptionist's life Hell with a little friend I have known as hacking." Muttered the teen as he continued onwards with his one good arm.

Which was most certainly a maddening problem for him! Damned Banana peel! He ignored the gasp as he kept focused on the task at hand. "That's not a good thing to do!"

"And? She deserves it for treating the Brotherhood like pure garbage at the hospital despite clearly seeing that one of their own is seriously ill."

His reasoning unfortunately didn't sway Jean. "But that doesn't mean you should use our equipment or your skills for something like that! You should know better then that!" Protested the Redhead.

Naturally, he ignored her and hit the enter button and let out a satisfied sigh. "And now, Beatrice Kolmon will never know life as she used too ever again. Life is good."

Jean frowned at him and moved to look at what he did and her eyes widened. "Stealing funds from the hospital!? Working for a terrorist group!? A seller of bestiality pornography!? How could you do that to her!?"

A shrug came from the genius Human. "Well, gee, Grey, it was real easy."

"But she's on the FBI's Most Wanted List now!"

Another shrug came from Arcade. "Maybe now she'll think twice about her views of Mutantkind." He told her as he got up and stretched.

"Besides, considering you let Matthews and his bunch practically get away with murder, you have no right to pass judgement on me." Added the young man with a sneer as he brushed past her in an unkind manner.

Missing the confused expression from her in the process. "What do you mean by that?"

Letting out a sigh of agitation, Arcade looked back at her. "You remember Charlie Goodman from a few months back?"

His question made her think about that for a moment until she remembered Charlie. "Yeah, he uhh, he kept trying to talk to me about something but I was a little busy at the time."

"HAH! Busy, right. More like you refused to listen to anything he said since you thought he was hittin' on you, Grey. When in REALITY, he was trying to plead with you to get Matthews and his friends to leave him alone! But NOO! You thought he was hitting on you instead. Some Mindreader you are. You know what that attempt got him? Huh!? Do ya!?"

Eyes wide in shock, Jean could only shake her head in silence. Causing him to sneer at her. "It got him a black eye, a broken nose, and a broken wrist. Of course since Matthews and his bunch of idiots are the best sports players in the school, nothing happened to them! Which is why Goodman's family chose to move away! All 'cause you refused to actually listen! Its why there's a whole crap load of animosity towards the Jocks and you Popular idiots." Informed the young man disdainfully.

"So in the long run, what I did to that receptionist PALES in comparison to what you did, or what I should say, didn't do, where Charlie Goodman is concerned."

Jean could say nothing to that, leaving him to scoff and walk away, muttering unkind things as he did so.

Elsewhere In The Lower Levels

"I can honestly say that I am quite stumped on this, Charles. And that's a rarity for me." Declared Hank 'Beast' McCoy to Professor Charles Xavier some hours after Lance was brought to them.

He and the Professor had been going over the blood work to figure out what was going on with the young man after several uses of antibiotics had failed. In fact, one of them had seemed to make things much more worse for young Lance. Forcing the two to completely abandon any attempts where antibiotics are concerned. A heavy sigh escaped Charles as he too looked at the results on the screen. "Its unsettling to find myself in the same position, Hank. Whatever is going on with young Avalanche to the point his powers aren't even active is very worrisome. Especially as we can not identify the cause."

"It also doesn't help that we do not have the necessary equipment to fully dive into this mystery." Grumbled Hank.

Earning another heavy sigh from the wheelchair bound Professor. "Agreed."

Things were silent between the two for a time until Charles spoke up again. "I feel its best to send our findings to Muir Island. Perhaps where we failed to discover the cause, Moira can find success."

"Very well, I shall prepare everything quickly and make use of the X-Jet to deliver it all to her myself."

And both Xavier and Hank hoped like crazy that Moira MacTaggert could do what they couldn't. Or else… Young Lance's life could be lost to an unknown sickness. One that could even be potentially contagious for all they knew despite the fact that his friends hadn't been infected.

Muir Island, Hours Later

A tired Moira MacTaggert made her way outside with her current love interest, Sean 'Banshee' Cassidy, by her side as the X-Jet touched down on the ground. The two waited for Hank to make his way down and greeted him once he had made his way to them. "Welcome to Muir Island, Hank."

"I wish it were under better circumstances." He told her with a tired sigh. Idly wondering yet again how the others were doing back home since the Brotherhood kids hadn't taken the news too well that they had yet to find out what was wrong with Lance.

Moira nodded in agreement. "Aye, now let's get all this looked at shall we?

Author's Notes: Will Moira be able to figure out what Hank and Xavier couldn't? Stay tuned to find out!