Chapter VII
"Can I help you or should I go ahead and end this" the demon said, his voice dripping with venom. Ghost looked up and gave a meek smile. Adrian tried to think of something clever to say but nothing came to mind. So Pixie took over.
"Wow I never knew blue and fuzzy could be so hot but dude it so totally works for you" she said in the boy crazy girly way. Megan looked him up and down, she liked what she saw. He stood on his two toes like a fawn; his feet were over extended; ending in a third toe like heel. His body was athletically thin, not skin and bones but not overly muscular. His face ended in a pointed chin, he had almost perfect cheek bones. When he opened his mouth they could see very pronounced canines.
"What the hell are you looking at" he said in a smug tone. Caliban looked down at them with glowing scarlet eyes in disbelief. In a reality where mutants were supposed to be accepted, people still stared at him like he was a monster.
"Well" Pixie said "as far as I can tell, we are looking at Nightcrawler's son". Megan got up and stared right back into the eyes of the demon. She thought about hitting him with her pixie dust, but that would probably just upset him. So she got a different idea. She thought of a spell she learned from a television show.
"Let he who waken from his sleep" she began "once again slumber deep". Caliban's eyelids grew heavy as he began to fall into a deep REM sleep. He fell back nearly hitting the floor. A smoky silver energy field enveloped Caliban as Ghost caught him with his t.k.
"Damn Megan what did you do to him, his brain is so far gone, he feels like he is in a coma" Ghost said, checking on Caliban's mental stability.
"I may have put him in one, that was the first time I have ever used that spell, I saw it on Charmed" Megan replied. She walked over to the teen's slumbering body and checked for a pulse, she found that it was strong. Then suddenly out of nowhere her soul dagger appeared.
"What the hell are you doing, you can't kill him, Megan" Ghost said to her. He reached for her hand but Pixie jerked away instinctively. She could feel Ghost's magik trying to touch her, corrupt her, she had to protect herself and Dust and X. She moved with a speed unlike any of the others had seen from Pixie, but X was faster. X grabbed Pixie by the shoulders and shoved her against the wall.
"You will not obstruct this mission; you will help, not harm the others. If you try again I will kill you" Laura said coldly in a remote monotone voice. She waited for Megan to nod her understanding and moved away from her. X didn't like magik and never would. She didn't understand and probably never would. It was the one thing that had a sure fire way of hurting or killing her, and that didn't sit well with X.
"Will you be alright to teleport us back to the jet Megan" Sooraya asked. She was worried for Pixie, even though Megan annoyed her to some degree Sooraya thought of Pixie as a younger sister, now. Even though they weren't that close, Dust would do everything in her power to protect Megan though she would never admit to it.
"Yeah I'll be fine, just give me a minute" Pixie took a minute to think about what just happened. She had manifested her soul dagger without even thinking about it. Then she went all schizoid and attacked Ghost. She had been around Ghost plenty of times and had never done this, or even felt the urge too. Those would just be more questions to ask Dr. Strange when they got back to NYC. She walked to the middle of the group and said the teleportation chant.
"Sihal Novarum Chinoth". With an explosion of light and pink powder the group was gone.
Within ten minutes they were in the air and on the way home. X called the mansion to check in and inform the others of the new student.
"Emma we were successful in our mansion, we have the boy and should be back at base in 20 minutes" X told Emma.
"Good Beast just checked in too so once everyone is at home we can begin the debriefing" Emma said sounding stressed. X knew there was something wrong at home. Emma's voice was a few octas higher, and shaky. She reached over for the thrust and gave the jet more power.
Ghost pulled out his cell phone and walked to the back of the plane, to the storage room. He called Amy so that he could check on her. He smiled when the ring back tone for his number came on.
"Casper the friendly ghost, the friendliest ghost you'll know…." Amy answered the phone with a very calm quiet soothing "hey". Her voice always did that to him; it made him calm yet stirred wild emotions inside him at the same time. Adrian answered back "hey how did your team do"?
"We did great we found the remains of the bomb, we even got there before the government" Amy said, "I just wish…." Ghost waited for the rest of the sentence but it never came. He didn't need her to finish it; he knew that she was thinking the exact same thing as he was. He missed her, but he decided to leave that subject out.
"That's good, we completed our mission too, although Frost may be a little pissed when we get back" Adrian said changing the subject back to work, he knew that Megan was right outside the door eavesdropping.
Knock! Knock! "Hey Ghost, X said to get in your seat and buckle up, we're about to land" Pixie said through the door.
Five minutes later the x-jet was sitting in the hanger, Laura was refueling it. Dust was inside the plane filling out the logs and finishing her reports. Sooraya turned in her seat when she heard X running up the platform.
"Dust" Laura said quietly, she pointed to her nose and then pointed to the storage room, discretely. Dust nodded, gathered her files and started for the door.
"I should take these reports to Emma" Sooraya said and walked down the platform. As soon as she was on the ground she went in to her sand form. She got back on the jet through the ventilation system; she went straight for the storage room. As she came to the storage room's vent she heard X slowly enter the room.
She knew exactly where it was the minute she entered the room. It wasn't any of her normal senses that gave it away. In fact she couldn't smell it at all anymore. That was a very bad thing. It meant that it could mask itself from her, and it knew she knew. She moved to the pull-down bed and kicked under it. Whatever it was, her foot went right through it. Her foot felt cold, even through her boot, she could feel cold shadowy nothing. She looked to the vent and nodded. Dust flew through the vent and went under the bed. But when she went under it nothing was there.
"Please I didn't mean to scare anyone, I just knew that I should come here for help" said the boy standing at the door. He was about 5'6 and couldn't have weighed more the 110 lbs. He had dark blue almost violet eyes, and his hair was a matted black mess. His cloths were all but rags, covered in stains. But the most distinct thing of all was the shadow that stayed at his feet, no matter where the light shone on him.
"Back away from the child, X, I would like to keep him as unholy as possible" Emma said walking down the stairs of the hanger. She came up to the jet and looked up the ramp.
"Boy who are you and what are you doing here" Emma asked the boy. Hepta was cautiously walking down the ramp, looking both ways. He was surrounded, on one side he had some crazy chicks, one of which could turn into a sandstorm, and the other had knives between her knuckles. On the other side, which was much better, was a woman in all white, who should have been on the runways of Milan.
"I knew this was the x-men's jet, so I phased through the ship and stowed away" Hepta explained to Emma "I knew that it would come back to you guys' mansion, the New Orleans' officials were after me, and I'm a minor so I figured you could help me" Hepta said walking up to Emma.
"I will see what we can do, in the meantime X, Dust if you will, go to the lab, we are briefing everyone on what is going on" Emma said turning and walking back to the stairs. She turned around again and looked at empty air, near Dust "and Ghost that goes for you as well." Ghost became visible and looked toward Hepta, then back at Emma. He then went fuzzy, as if out of focus. Then the air around him got very cold, and then he and the others vanished with only a smoky bank of fog left in their place. Emma knew what that look Ghost gave her. He wasn't able to get into the boy's head. Emma moved to the boy and looked him over. She noticed the shadow at his feet, it didn't outline his shape on the floor, but it stayed at his center, it was in a two inch radius around his feet. It also seemed to move on its own. She saw a small tendril come and touch her shadow.
"Young man what is your name, and to your knowledge what are your powers" Emma asked, she looked stern, a teacher through and through. She started walking up the stairs, and looked back to make sure Hepta was following. She waited at the door for him to catch up. Hepta caught up and started to tell his story to Emma.