Instant Story

Sam and Scott, post meltdown, disagree on his view of getting along.

“Sara’s idea?”

“Not… entirely.”

“Hm,” Sam joined Scott on the balcony. “I thought I detected a thumb on the scales.”

“So what? Duncan got everything he deserved and then some.”

“I can’t deny he’d earned some justice,” Sam allowed. “But I’ve always felt you should allow your enemy to walk away with some face intact. Lest they find out who was at the core of it and manage to extract revenge.”

“Duncan’s not that smart.”

Sam jiggled his head, conceding the point. “So where does his anger go, then? When he wants revenge, and he will want revenge.”

Scott stared out at the bay. “Someone unlucky enough to get in the way, maybe?”

A nod. “Someone helpless. Someone who can’t defend themselves. Someone who can’t or won’t fight back. Someone little, so that the likes of him can feel big.”

“He needed to be taken down so that everyone could see what he was. And he needed to do it to himself.”

“But recording it? Making sure you have a relic of the event so you can gloat?”

“No. Not to gloat. To make sure he never hurts another girl again.”

“Do you think he can tell the difference?”

“He doesn’t matter. I want the whole world warned about him. He’s a rapist and an abuser and the kind of man who’d hurt a kid just because they got in his way. The kind of man who’d find a kid just so he could hurt them again and again and–”

“This isn’t all about Duncan.”

“Mr Winters used to talk about his glory days. About the things he used to do… when he was just a baby monster.” A shuddering, gasping gulp. “He was exactly like Duncan.”

“And you would stop him at every chance?”

“Every time I could.”

Sam sighed. “Remember what happened to Ahab, eh?”

“I’ve already been destroyed,” said Scott. “As long as he doesn’t hurt anyone else.”

Sam stared out at the water. “There’s other ways to defeat monsters,” he offered. “I can show you how.”

“And nobody else gets hurt?”

“And nobody else gets hurt.”

They shook on it.

[Muse food remaining: 5. Submit a prompt! Ask a question!]

Paul, in the visitor’s room, explaining to his parents why his bail was set so high.

“Five thousand dollars?” Dad was shrieking. “Loitering is a bullshit offense. Especially in an abandoned structure. Why the HELL is your bail five thousand freaking dollars?”

“Um… Uh…”

“Spit it out, boy.”

“There’s -ah- someevidenceontapeofplottingrapeandmurder…”

Dad’s face when deadly pale. “You stupid little shit…”

Tenderness from an unlikely person in an unlikely place.

Ow.

Not fair. The heart-warming speech should have worked. The whole ‘pick on someone your own size’ thing inherent should have at least made them ashamed of themselves.

But no. Sara had to get an ugly of thugs who took her whole shame-on-you speech as an open invitation. At least the kid got away. She’d made certain.

Which left her back open for attack.

_Mental note. Don’t

When glitter goes awry.

Silly Season had started early. It was an excuse for the humans to vent some of their usually-socially-inhibited insanity and to allow things to ‘all hang out’.

Not literally. There had to be standards.

Rael had done his best, with all the other nonhuman JOATs, to make sure the possibility of damage was limited. A certain amount of nonsense was expected, even permitted, during Silly Season. Already, some of the harmless mainstays were occurring.

Not only

Anywhere in the story: “It happened, and because it happened, it had to exist whether they liked it or not.”

There were thousands of words to describe Shayde. “Annoying” just happened to be in his top five. She had a uniquely twentieth-century disregard for others’ established preferences and his in particular. And this wasn’t the first time he wished inwardly that he had not been the first responder to her spectacular arrival.

Rael found her.

Sara’s mom and Scott have a chat during her wait while attempting to do a bit of step work with Sara. Scott actually receives good advice from her in the process, albeit slightly jaundiced in delivery.

Jacquelline Adrien had changed a lot since Scott last laid eyes on her. Gone was the Pink Chanel power suit and the ludicrously small hat. Gone were the Label accessories and the solid layer of Mary Kaye cosmetics. Gone, too, were about five pounds

Morning becomes eccentric.

It wasn’t fair. It really wasn’t fair. Sharing the same house with someone who operated in a different time zone was every colour of unfairness.

“Good morning, good mor-ning,” she sang. “You’ve worked the whole night through, good morning, good morning to you.”

And it was really unfair that he loved her beyond all reason. Because mornings made him grumpy.

He was a night-owl. She was a morning person.

Shayde’s first day taking dancing lessons.

[AN: Shayde’s first dancing lesson was when she was a 5YO Katie Walker…But I’ll take ‘modern’ 25thC dance]

“And left… No, the other left. Stage left!”

“Ow!” Shayde flinched away. “How’s someone so skinny so darn heavy?”

“I’m denser than I look.”

“Ye can say that twice,” Shayde muttered. “Why

The 5th oldest trick in the book and the simpleton who fell for it.

As kidnappers went, this fellow was not particularly bright. He’d definitely dotted on to the idea that one should grab the most vulnerable member and attempt to extort money from the remaining family.

He’d forgotten that the remaining family most convenient to this situation was an Augmented St. Bernard by the name of Nanny. Who operated on a schedule of events and was now

Julie, Nana, buckets of paint and why artists sometimes get away from themselves.

Nanny the Augmented dog had fallen asleep by Julie’s easel. That much was evident from the paint spatter on her cloak and skirt. And Julie had opened all the paint cans in a flight of colour-inspired fancy. That was evident from the rainbows of new spatter all over the floors and walls.

What wasn’t instantly evident to Raak was how the two of them had

In lieu of college or teaching at the institute, Sam Adrien offers Scott Summers an internship upon graduation. Creeping doom raises the hackles on Scott’s neck subconsciously.

He did it. He passed the bar. He was now entitled to enter the cut-throat world of the law. And very possibly defend his fellow mutants against the slings and arrows of outrageous senators who, say, wanted to ban mutants.

Sam Adrien, like many blonds, was going darker in his old age. On

Scott preparing for his first date without Jean and her reaction to finding out that he might be playing the field with no desire to incite jealousy in her by doing so.

“Sara’s showing some of her filmography in the big screening room, downstairs. Coming?”

Scott was busy fiddling with a proper bow tie. “Sorry, I’ll catch up with it all, later. I have a date.”

Jean startled, all of the things Xavier had

The cronies, post meltdown, discussing the sad state of their affairs and their choices in a not-so secret location. Scott makes an appearance.

Three of them came to the not-so-secret hide-away in the abandoned church to basically bitch about what had just happened.

“Did you see him crying? It’s like he just grew tits…” said Graydon

“That fucking Tranny Essel got to him. I kinda sympathize,” said Brent.

Graydon punched what was left of the