mindfreak

“The one that isn’t interested in your bullshit. So, clearly not Madelyne.”

“Baby Jean! You’re fiery, aren’t you?”

“They’re necessary. Esme is, at least. I’m not sure about the other two.”

“Esme is the worst of them. At least the other two admit to being crazy and evil. Don’t trust the White Queen. Any of them.”

“I’ve fallen victim to the plots of a pretty bird before, not about to let my guard down so another can take advantage of me. Especially not one named Lady Mastermind.”

“Oh, so you think I’m pretty?” Regan asked. “Don’t judge me by my name. The older sister may have gotten the name Mastermind, but I got everything else.”

“I don’t want them to fear me, but they’ve seen me fight. They know what I’m capable of.” He admitted with some hesitation. “Pretty right. That’s compensation for being alone in the multiverse.” Noh said wryly as they approached the moon. It wasn’t that he wasn’t appreciative of his looks, he just wished he had his looks and someone who cared about him.

“You should. I thought you were smarter than that.” She retorted. “Well, at least you have one thing going for you even if it’s only skin deep. It’s better than nothing. Being alone is incurable, even when you have family.” Regan knew that from personal experience. She had laid alone in a coma without her own sister caring about what happened. Other people were pointless if they couldn’t be used.

“That’s no way to live.”

“It’s the only way to live. You’ll die a quick death otherwise.”

“Hmm? Oh. Yeah, no thanks– I’ve already got myself to worry about.”

One side effect to having a mutation relying heavily on the changing of your own appearance– was a lot of unwelcome identity crises. Fear of losing himself. Fear of morphing and somehow…getting stuck? It was all there- and now it was all out on display- written across his face like sharpie dicks after a crazy house party.

There it was. Regan blinked, his fears drifting around his head like a cloud of smoke. She sifted through it, watching the fear float through her fingertips. “You poor thing.” Sympathy dripped from her voice. “How awful it must be to fear yourself. You can’t ever escape that.”

“What? Sounding like you mean it when you give someone a disingenuous compliment? That’s like Life Skills 101.”

“When you’re looking to grow up a pushover it is. When you don’t give a shit about any other than number one it’s not. You have to speak to your crowd. Life Skill 101 is survival.”

“Oh, no– I’d be luckier if an anvil fell out of the sky and crushed me before you opened your mouth again,” Bruce paused for a moment and glanced up at the sky in mild disappointment, “Damn. So close.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be mild mannered?” Regan asked, a finger pointing lazily towards him as her nose scrunched.

“You know, I think now’s really not the time for this,” he stated, his tone harsh but succinct.

“I’ll take it as a to be continued, not a the end. Until next time.” Regan blew a kiss into the air, rising with swinging hips heralding her exit.

His eyes flared bright orange for a moment as he felt the flames in his chest churn. His orange eyes fading back into blue, “Not to deal with you, sunshine. Are we done here?” 

“Do you want to be?” Regan pouted. “That’s not very fun. We don’t have to be enemies, you know.”

“I can’t decide if you guys are just intense, or if you’re crazy.”

“You know, I think—- I think I hear somebody calling- me–” Ben took a few steps backward, gaze wary but fairly neutral as his brain began firing on all cylinders to find some sort of solution to his current predicament.

Regan tempted with the idea of messing him up. She wanted to watch his heart stop as he feared a heart attack, but that would just get her in trouble. The Hellfire Club didn’t care if they killed Sentinel Service agents or anyone inconsequential but a full mutant war wasn’t on the schedule. “What’s wrong? Afraid of someone in your mind?”

“Clearly your question was rhetorical. Wanted to provide yourself with a bragging opportunity I’m guessing.” His tone was neutral. “I appreciate you understanding how awesome the Marvel 2 is and I can empathize with you. Before I was shot down above your planet I was a member of the fourteenth Kree Diplomatic Gestalt ship. We negotiated peace and expansion of our Kree Empire in our own universe as well as others. I was made to be the perfect solider, my fathers cosmic radiation, my mothers mind, and all the best of their gene stuffs altered with some of the best gene alteration in any universe. I was considered the future and valued as the next step of my race. And now I’ve gone from a universe of transcendental peace to one with power hungry titans and a planet that instead of embracing evolution fights it. I would say we’re both slumming it in that regard.”

“Yes, it’s something we do in the Hellfire Club. You have to one up your teammates, don’t you? How else would you make them fear you?” As he began to talk about space Regan felt her eyes cross slightly as she lost the ability to focus. Herself? A wonderful topic. Others? She was still mastering empathy or compassion on any level. Instead she tended to tune out the irrelevant chatter of those like the Frosts or any of the other Club. Call it a bad habit. “Nobody will cry for us. At least we’re pretty, right? There’s an upside to all of this.”

The heaving of Ben’s chest slowed ever so slightly, but the fire did not cease. Suddenly waging a bit of an internal battle on whether or not to give in and listen to the blonde, or attempt to walk away and somehow make things worse, Ben kept his mouth shut, fists balled at his sides.

She was bored. Regan had been holding back and being good because the Hellfire Club wanted to keep up appearances but that didn’t change the black rage she felt inside. That didn’t eliminate the anger she carried from the experiments done on her. It was with glowing eyes that she took a step forward, thoughts beginning to intertwine with his own. “You smell that? Smoke.” Her smile was vindictive as it began to fill the air around them. The room melted away as the illusion solidified. For him it would be real. For her it was like gazing through a window at what he didn’t want to see. “Looks like someone started a fire.”

“I can understand the boredom part-” Noh replied as they left the atmosphere. Turning his head towards her and raising a brow, “- but are you referring to the Marvel 2 as below average in quality? Or is there some other definition to ‘slumming it’.” Noh held a lot of pride for his vessel. He made it from salvageable parts from the marvel and had spent months gathering the rare materials necessary for the Kirby engines.

“Do you know who I am? My father was Hellfire Club. I’m Hellfire Club. My family has always resided on the upper crust of the mutant species and people seem to forget that.” Her nose raised into the air. “So, no. I’m not calling the Marvel 2 below average. I’m calling my situation and circumstances below average.”

“Why’d I even bother waking up today?” Jono projected as he got up and patted down his leather jacket, checking for his keys.

“Good question!” Regan rose as well, hands planted firmly on her black clad hips. “Why did you?”