#daringfire

Hank was excited to run a game of Dungeons & Dragons that night. With everything that had happened in Detroit, duties at the Jean Grey School, and now with the emergence of HOPE, the mutant headmaster had a lot on his plate. This game would provide some stress relief. It had taken a while to find the time for everyone to start up their regular game again, but finally tonight was the night.

After picking up his old D&D books at his birthday party several months ago, the geneticist had decided to invest in the newest edition of the roleplaying game. Finally, after the Foesitians were defeated, he found the time to start the campaign he’d been wanting to for the longest time. Hank was able to gather a few people who were interested, some unexpected and other not so much. Regardless, he certainly was not going to complain about having players. Surveying the dining room table from behind his gamemaster’s screen, the big blue nerd organized his dice and took stock of the snacks that everyone had brought.

All of his players had arrived, Jack Romulus and Adam Warlock being the last to show up, were still pulling out their character sheets and getting situated in their seats. The founding X-Man had forgotten how exactly Adam had been wrangled into their campaign, but Jack had insisted that he join and after much convincing, Hank had relented and allowed Warlock to play with them. Recently the gamemaster had rolled up a tiefling rogue named Hilda Whisperstep for the golden-skinned hero to play. Their original party had consisted of Romulus’ half-elf cleric, Celestia Silas, Carol Danvers’ human fighter, Swordbearing Cockman, James Dwyer’s dwarf barbarian, Kronk, and his good friend Bruce Banner as Hulkar the half-orc monk. Together, the group of adventurers set out to thwart evil and gain glory, all in the name of the Empress of the Shimmering Wastes.

Beast cleared his throat, hit play on the playlist of fantasy music he had queued up, and began to narrate:

Disgusting. That’s what this was. Absolutely, stomach-churning disgusting. 

Can’t they just live off in their own worlds? They’re friends with the aliens, right? We never said they were welcome here, and they invited themselves to live on our planet.

I’m just so worried about the diseases people with superpowers carry--especially mutants. Do they, like, spread mutated diseases we don’t have vaccines or medicines to?

“What about the ones with fur? That hair gets everywhere. We never asked for any of that.” That had been Rogue’s contribution to the conversation. She was trying to blend in, but she couldn’t help her comments from being sarcastic, at least in her head. This was all so sickening.

She was at a HOPE meeting. In New Orleans. One of her least favorite places in the world, given it was where the Assassins Guild was based, and they had a vendetta against her, and the city reminded her of Remy, and Cody, and all the times she’d been kidnapped. But this was where the X-Men had intel of a meeting being held, and so that was where Rogue was going, dressed in civilian clothes and a nice brown wig.

After the meeting was over, Rogue headed down the street back to her motel room. But after a few minutes, she was actually unsurprised to realize that someone was following her. Everyone else had dropped off, gone their own ways. Except him. Sighing, she stopped. Turned around. “Sugar, you gonna try to mug me?”