"Hey Freddy, want to order out?" Toad offered. Fred said not a thing. He just sat on the sofa in Misfit Manor with his arms crossed, not even bothering to look in Toad's general direction.
"Anyone up for a pizza? Hot wings? Chicken? Chinese? Italian? Thai? Greek?" Lance asked, suggested some of Fred's favorite places.
"Fred, do you want to go bug the X-Geeks?" Pietro asked. "We could steal Beast's twinkies or release a termite swarm in Jean's room…" He said tantalizingly.
"I could beat up Pietro for you." Wanda said.
Nothing.
"Come on Freddy, don't be like this." Toad whined. "Isn't there anything you want to order? A cheeseburger? Chili? Anything?"
"I'm NOT hungry!" Fred snapped at them. "Beat it!" Stunned, hurt, and a little scared; Fred's friends withdrew.
It had been two weeks since Lina was taken from the Misfits during the Battle of Dakota City. They hadn't heard a thing from her since. Despite Xavier's best efforts and the combined resources of the X-Men and GI Joe the Hellions—and Lina—remained out of their sight.
Fred had taken it the worst of anyone. When he wasn't tearing apart the base apart he simply plopped himself down in his room or in the living room—like he was doing now—and refused to say a word.
Roadblock looked in from the kitchen and shook his head. "Fred's really out of it." He told the other Joes at the table. "Frankly, I'm worried."
"You must be, if you're not rhyming." Shipwreck said weakly. "I don't understand it, how could the Hellions just vanish like that? I mean, we should've been able to find some trace of them!"
"They're not at the Terror Dome." Cover Girl said. "The Renegades practically tore that place apart looking for them. They're not at the Massachusetts Academy, or any other haunt we know of.
"And the girls haven't pulled anything from the prisoner?" Low Light asked in surprise. Shipwreck shook his head.
"They think its part of his mutation, to draw his mind inwards like that." Shipwreck said. "It…I dunno, detaches him from the outside world or something. The triplets, uh, usual methods aren't getting much from him. Even their psychic powers aren't really getting to his mind."
"Xi managed to tell us that he's can make copies of himself, like Multiple but that's about all we know." Roadblock added.
"Why not just get Xavier or Jean to poke inside this guy's head and see what's going on?" Toad said as he and the other Misfits—sans Fred—walked in. Roadblock sighed.
"It's…not that simple. While the prisoner's mind is too far out of reach for psychic abilities, telepathic abilities probably could reach his mind…However the problem is; is that his mind is so withdrawn a usual mental scan wouldn't cut it. It would have to be more…invasive."
"So that's the problem? Xavier's too worried about being 'invasive?' " Lance snorted. "That's a first! So he violates this guy's privacy. Big deal, it's not like he hasn't done it before."
"It's not the same." Cover Girl answered. "Usually Xavier uses his abilities to scan surface thoughts, erase short-term memories, or to try to help someone with their inner problems. He only goes deep into an enemy's mind in the middle of a fight. Here…it would be against a prisoner who has no real telepathic defenses and Xavier would have to go so deep into his mind to find the information we need...it'd be the mental equivalent of rape." Everyone flinched at the description.
"That's…where things become complicated." Roadblock finished. "As much as they want to help, Xavier and Jean can't agree to something like that. And I'm not so sure I want to force them to." He admitted. "Besides, there's no way of guaranteeing that he'll even know anything of value with regards to Lina. The only way we see those guys showing up anywhere is through their portal maker."
"So we've got nothing." Althea sighed. "Is there anything else we need to know?"
"We've got a mission coming up." Low Light said. "Trinity told us that while they were interrogating the prisoner a while ago, the machine Arcade built to keep track of mutant sightings told us of a sighting in New York. From what they told us when we dropped in to see them, this is one mutant apparently not caused by Striker Sunday and not in District X. We think this one's been around for a while and is pretty powerful at that."
"A mission? Without Lina?" Angelica said.
"Without Fred too." Althea sighed. "He's in no shape for a mission and if we ran into any opposition, he'd go Hulk on them. It wouldn't be pretty."
"So, if it's the Hellions why would that be a bad thing?" Pietro snorted.
"Because if he kills them all we won't be able to find Lina, lamebrain!" Wanda said, smacking him upside the head. "And it it's the Purists or FOH or something, mutants will get a bad name for beating up people."
"Maybe if we pick up a new recruit he could help us rescue Lina!" Arcade piped up. "The Hellions won't be expecting it and that gives us an edge!"
"Yeah and if he has the right powers he could find Lina for us!" Toad added, getting excited.
"Unless the Hellions snatch him out from under us like they did with the Metahumans." Shane mumbled.
"At least we got to meet Static." Toad pointed out. "Didn't you always say that he was a hero of yo—OWW!" Toad said as Shane stomped on his foot.
"He's got a point." Wanda said, indicating Shane.
"Nah, the Hellions of no way of knowing who we're going after, or that we're even going after everyone. Trust me, they're completely in the dark about this." Shipwreck assured them. Not knowing just how completely wrong and in the dark he was about this.