AN: Another short one, sorry. I don't own the Magic Box or Jaws. This chapter contains some gore, reader discretion advised.
It was a pleasant, gorgeous day Sunday morning, and after much cajoling and insistence that vampires didn't go out in daylight, Scott was finally persuaded to let the mutants try a second shot at having fun. Jean wanted to buy a new sun dress, Evan wanted to see if he could get new wheels for his skateboard, Kitty wanted to try a frozen tofu, and Kurt, Scott and Rogue had nothing better to do. All went out strolling down the town's main thoroughfare, wishing the weather in Massachusetts were as pleasant.
Jean stopped off at one boutique, and after a rather pointed suggestion that he ought to 'help' her, Scott did the same. Evan dragged Kurt with him into the Ferris Wheel, a bike/skate shop, and Kitty and Rogue carried on strolling.
"I am so glad I'm not a vegan," Kitty said, throwing her frozen tofu into a trash can. "That was totally vile."
"You haven't thought of going vegan, Kitty?"
"No way, those people are weird," Kitty replied. "Are you sure you're feeling better?"
"Yeah… this place is just so… I wish we hadn't come here. Hey, isn't that where those kids we met last night work?" Rogue said, pausing by a shop called the Magic Box.
"I think so. You wanna go in?"
"I think we've hung out with them enough," Rogue said, and the two started walking. The bell rang behind them as the door burst open.
"Wait! Adolescent girls, don't go!" they turned and were grabbed by a girl with blonde hair and big brown eyes. "Come inside, participate in commerce!" She hauled them bodily into the store.
"Must be a slow Sunday," muttered Kitty.
"Whoa there Anya, you don't need to be quite so proactive- hey! It's the mutants!" The red haired girl from the club, Willow, was sitting on the counter, smiling at them. Anya let them go and looked at them.
"Mutants? Well that's different. Do mutants shop?"
"More so than most humans in her case," Rogue said, nodding towards Kitty. Anya beamed.
"Excellent! We'll get along great!" Anya grabbed Kitty and started showing her around the store.
"For a town that's never heard of mutants, y'all sure seem okay with the idea," Rogue said to Willow, browsing through a selection of books. Willow smiled.
"Well, Anya there is an ex vengeance demon, and a firm believer in everyone's right to give her money in exchange for goods and services. As for Buffy, she's pretty much okay with anyone who's not trying to kill us. We're used to weird."
"What about you? You seem pretty normal."
"Recovering black magick junkie."
"Oh."
"This is the next step in my recovery program, being in the presence of magickal objects without the urge to use them to mess with reality. Or at least resisting said naughty urge."
"This stuff really works?"
"You better believe it, toots," Willow replied. Kitty came bouncing up to Rogue holding an embroidered indigo shawl.
"Okay, small bouncy girl is all set, now for you!" Anya said, approaching Rogue with a deliberateness which made the theme from Jaws seem warranted.
At last, after being subjected to sales tactics that were at best barely legal, Kitty walked out with her shawl, and Rogue came away with a deck of tarot cards.
"A pleasure doing business with you," Anya said from the doorway. "Come back soon with your friends and their money!"
The two mutants stepped back out onto the street.
"We have got to stop running into those people," Rogue sighed. "It's unhealthy and expensive."
"Rogue…" Kitty said. Rogue looked up from the deck of cards and quickly put them away. Lights spun in a slow circle, red, white and blue. There were no sirens, no one spoke, no shouting. The two girls got closer to a ring of people who were standing perfectly still.
The sun made the blood look fake, like red nail polish or paint. The outlines of the buildings were reflected in it, and as Rogue stepped closer to the ring of yellow cellophane, she saw her own distorted reflection in the red. The woman on the ground had black hair, and she was pretty when she was alive. Her eyes were open, they were green, and dulled with dust from the street, strands of her hair sticking to the blood on the pavement and on her face. Her neck was at an angle it shouldn't have been, one of her shoes had fallen off and was sitting on the ground a foot or so away, the lace untied and uneven. Kitty buried her face in Rogue's shoulder as Rogue looked across the crowd on the other side of the tape. Jean and Scott stood there, Evan and Kurt behind them.
Rogue met Jean's eyes across police lines, and Jean got her message across.
That's Professor Browning.