Into the garbage the candle went. Out of sight out of mind. "What Candle?" Kenna asked herself quietly, "I never saw it. I don't owe you anything. How'd you find me!?" The imaginary interrogation between her and some corporate thug consumed her until something of more concern wheeled itself into the room.
It was Crystal, the refugee princess that had only wished to make a connection with anybody, on a hospital style gurney. It was a pitiful feast for the eyes. Not only was she tangled in a web of sensors and chemical tubes, but there was now a massive tumor that fused her neck and shoulder together. Despite her obvious medical struggle with this horrifying affliction, she managed to crack a smile when she saw Kenna.
"Greetings Kenna, while I did not expect your presence here at our festive jubilation," said Dr. McCoy dressed in an ugly Christmas sweater. Kenna kept staring. Crystal tried to talk, but couldn't. She was simply too weak to form the words properly. "Ms. Knox?"
""Hi," Kenna said finally, "What? What's going on? What happened?"
"Oh this? It's nothing. And yet, it's everything really. Two lives fighting for the right to exist. The Danse Macabre of our fragile reality as it were."
"Two?"
"Yes, I suppose you haven't been properly introduced. The lovely lady attached to young Crystal's neck is Mazey. Mazey this is Kenna." The tumor spat at her. "Oh my stars and garters. My apologies Kenna that was most inappropriate," Dr. McCoy said, handing her a handkerchief.
"No, I deserve that. I did almost kill her," the tumor spat at her again, "And I'm sorry! Please stop spitting at me." Mazey attempted a third, but Crystal managed the strength to cover Mazey's spitting hole. "Are they going to be okay?" Kenna asked Dr. McCoy.
"Of course, they'll be right as rain as they say when Elixir arrives."
"Say what now?" Kenna asked, noticeably bothered.
"Did Kitty not inform you in regards to his return?"
"No?"
"Oh dear."
"Oh dear indeed good sir."
"Well since I'm the one who let the cat out of the proverbial bag I should also mention he wanted to have a conversation with you."
"And you're going to let that happen!?"
"I'm going to encourage it, but if you are uncomfortable with the idea I'm sure he'll understand."
"I'm uncomfortable."
"Then you both will be as the moon and the sun."
"What?"
"You'll never meet."
The party progressed along nicely as more and more colorful characters filled the dimly lit room. Games were played, carols were sung, and gifts were exchanged. Kenna spent most of the party sitting next to Crystal's gurney trying to build up enough sweet hot chocolate courage to introduce herself to people. Most of them already knew her as the "ceiling girl" which was an unfortunate but welcome ice breaker. When she brought up Franny they'd either ask her if she knew where she kept her treasures or change the subject. Some of them even referred to Franny as mom which Kenna found odd. Franny had never mentioned anything about having kids at all let alone here at the school.
It was during a passionate but strange conversation about who would win in a fight between Ororo and Thor with a Morlock who's anatomy was literally twisted in every way did Kenna notice someone going through the garbage can she threw the candle in. It was concerning.
"Hey buddy! Let me help you there. What are we looking for?" said Kenna, plunging her arms deep into the garbage. The receptacle was filled with the wet and warm of soggy cookies and cheap hot chocolate. And glass, lots of glass. Kenna had forgotten one of the games the Morlocks played was simply throwing empty beer bottles at a wall. It was fun, she got really into it, and now she was regretting breaking so many. Her pain wasn't rewarded either. She couldn't find it.
"Have you, by any chance, found anything interesting?" Kenna asked awkwardly.
"Dah," said Illyana. Kenna jerked her head back up. Her garbage buddy had been Illyana the whole time dressed in an elf costume. In her grasp was the candle in all its lavender glory. Ilyana brought it to her nose and took a long draw from its essence. Her eyes rolled back as she did.
"Can I at least wash my hands?" Red and green flames formed a pentagram around both of them. "But it's Christmas, sort of!" Kenna pleaded as Illyana laughed. They were dumped next to a dumpster not too far away at the back of the mansion. Kenna immediately ran for it but was caught by another flaming pentagram every single time until she gave up.
"So, Illyana, how are you doing? Last time I saw you you were dead? How did that go?" asked Kenna. Illyana held up one finger to her ear and another to Kenna.
"Dah? Taking out trash. I'll bring her back," said Illyana to her earpiece.
"I'm sorry! I don't know how she found me! I don't have fifty-thousand dollars! Please don't kill me even though it would probably solve all your problems," cried Kenna.
"You like pranks?" asked Illyana.
"Is it the kind of prank where we're like putting confetti in people's air conditioning or are we beating people up on the street?"
"Dah."
"Do I really have a choice?"
"Nyet." Illyana handed Kenna the candle.
"What do I do with this?"
"Light candle. Don't tell her I'm here," said Illyana, climbing deep into the trash can.
"What!?"
"Just do it. It will be funny."
"I'm so confused and cold! Can you at least help me light it?" As if it was eavesdropping on the conversation the candle lit itself.
The flame was a light purple hue matching the wax it was born from. It neither moved nor flickered, it simply was. And the longer she stared at it the more it was. And what it was was everything.
"Be careful deary," said the old blind woman as if she had always been there, "You could hurt your eyes staring at it like that." The old woman seemed different. Her hair was shorter, her clothes nicer, and any pretense of fragility gone.
"What is this?" asked Kenna. Her eyes never leaving the fire.
"Why do you ask questions you already know the answer to?"
"I want to hear you say it."
"Magic, processed magic picked and packaged for your person."
"I shouldn't have this."
"Nobody should and yet so many do."
"I can't pay for it."
"Oh but deary, you already have."
"You took my soul didn't you? Dammit I specifically said you couldn't have that." The old blind woman smiled at the thought.
"We'll call it rendered services."
"I don't follow."
"I needed you to get here. Take your eyes off the candle and look around." What was once a dark forest surrounding the grounds was now lit up with burning red pentagrams on every tree. "Quite the chore to get around honestly, unless you have someone on the inside."
"How am I seeing all this?" asked Kenna.
"A side effect of the candle."
"Cool, and what are those?" Kenna asked, pointing into a night sky filled with endless unblinking eyes.
"The cowards cosmic. The busybodies of the universe. An endless void of pretentious know-it-alls."
"So aliens? I know aliens. Everybody knows aliens. You can just say aliens." the old woman smiled again.
"Imagine you, everybody you know, and your aliens as a tiny ship in a tiny bottle."
"Okay."
"Now imagine if that bottle was dropped in an ocean teaming with life."
"Alright, I get it.You can stop now," said Kenna lightly fidgeting with her inhibitor.
"Now imagine that at the bottom of that ocean is an infinite number of other bottles with their own ships and people and aliens."
"Yes! Everything is really complicated! Horrors beyond my imaginations! Cool! Thanks! Sorry I asked!"
"Don't fret, child. They won't interfere. Not directly at least. They're too scared. Reality is weak and they are strong. They prefer mentally fragile avatars and fanatic cults to do anything significant on this side of the glass."
"What would they be interfering with?"
"Change, a chance to make the inevitable evitable. To avoid that which is to come."
"And that's here? At this school? Right now?"
"It was, now all that remains is the door. A path I must follow. An appointment I must keep. An annihilation wave to avoid."
"Well, good luck with that. I have to get back to the party. A powerful party with powerful people. Who are expecting me to come back…alive?"
"I'm sure, very powerful, one last thing my sweat and I will let you be. Which building housed Layla Miller?"
Illyana chose that moment to rise up from the garbage plunging her glowing greatsword through the back of the old woman. Kenna was so distracted by the question she completely forgot about Illyana's prank. Honestly, she didn't find it very funny. Unless the prank was on her the whole time. The old woman didn't die but instead burst into lavender flame. Her visage slowly burning away for more ethereal features.
"Do you have any idea who I am?" she said, clutching at the blade protruding from her chest.
"Dah!" said Illyana, laughing her head off. lllyana pulled her into the waste bin. It seemed impossible to do. The trashcan could hardly hold one person let alone two, but somehow she managed. Dark flames shot out from the top like a cursed industrial accident. And much like any good industrial accident Kenna gradually walked away from it, staring back only occasionally to see how bad it was getting.
It was bad enough to attract the attention of faculty. Peter, Scott, and Jean still dressed in their festive ware sped past her at the main entrance with barely any acknowledgement. It didn't bother her. She didn't want any association with the prank anyway. She only wanted to get back to her room. Her warm safe room. Where nothing bad ever happens.
"Ellie, you're not going to believe the week I've had," said Kenna entering her room. Ellie was firmly planted on her bed in a rigid seated position. With hands clasped so tightly that her knuckles were turning white. "So I just got back right? Then I was doing surveillance with Franny when she got stabbed by Logan's daughter. And then some crazed deer broke in and stole Lin. And then a taxi driver that turned out to be an embodiment of vengeance tried to kill me."
Ellie didn't protest her existence or speak. No eye contact was made at any point. "Then Franny was sent to bring me back. And then we got into a big fight. And then that taxi driver tried to kill us again. Then I got in trouble with Shield. Which I'm probably not supposed to talk about. Do you know about Shield? Whatever, Anyway, I then trained with Scott and almost got into more trouble. Then there was a party where my cursed candle found me."
Kenna broke mid summary to notice she had unintentionally brought it back with her, "And then the witch used it to get here. And then Illyana did something to her. Still not sure what that was about."
Ellie finally stared in her direction but not at her. "And that about sums it up. How've you been?"
"Well," Ellie started, "Layla is back."
"Oh shit really? Where is she? Has she asked about her clothes? I want to give them back, but then I wouldn't have any."
"She's behind you," said Ellie in a worried tone. The door closed behind Kenna. Followed by a swift pain in her neck. She tried to turn around to confront her long lost roommate but her body didn't respond. It simply bled red rivers from her neck before collapsing to the floor. Her head rolled across the room detached, giving a better view of the scene. Layla, with a smug look of satisfaction, sprinkled the disintegrating blade over Kenna's body. Her killer's attention turned to the candle. Even with the limp nature of Kenna's decapitated corpse her hand still held it. It was a firm grip too as Layla discovered. Kenna's killer grew frustrated and regretful dismissing her weapon so early not expecting such resistance from the dead.
Each second felt like an eternity on the floor. She tried to say something but found no air or lungs to make words with. The word she was trying to say was not "Why?" or "Shit" or even "Help". It was "Sorry". For as the lights turned out in her brain the last emotion she felt was guilt. Not for any stolen clothes or her lengthy list of collateral damage, but for Franny. For everything Kenna did to her. For pulling her down with her. For making her life worse than it was already.
But as her lights turned off another turned on. The cursed candle came back to life. Kenna locked her eyes onto the petrified flame. It made sense in a way she couldn't quite understand. Knowledge buckled under intuition. Reason lost its reason. The rule of rule broke. And with a simple desire not to leave she stayed.
She didn't blink. While life had somehow found her severed head she wasn't sure what would scare it away. She did however move her attention to her killer. Layla still struggled with no sign of regret or remorse for her despicable deed. The disrespect was difficult to bear. Kenna desired her pain, and the candle provided.
Layla burst into dark lavender flames that filled the room with sickly sweet fragrance. It stuck to her, and only her, refusing to spread or consume anything else. Kenna expected screaming to follow, but only Ellie met that expectation. Layla was surprised but not in panic. Her response was measured with strategic removal of different articles of clothing, and skin. As she bolted out of the door Kenna could have sworn she discarded the entirety of her scalp. The smokeless fire ate the entirety of anything it was attached to before disappearing leaving no trace of its summoning.
"Pick up. Please pick up," said Ellie, frantically smashing her fingers across the glass of her phone. Despite her many attempts her brother did not answer the phone. Kenna couldn't speak. Despite the many laws of reality she was breaking by still being alive she couldn't find the same desperate will to make herself talk without the air lungs typically provide. She settled for a popping noise she could make with her lips. Ellie was so shocked to find Kenna's head still functioning that she kicked Kenna's head under the other bed. Ellie tried to call her brother a few more times until the guilt overcame her fear. She, with great apprehension and reluctance, fished Kenna's head from under the bed.
"Please, just die," cried Ellie. Kenna was not amused.
"Really? You can clearly see that I'm alive. Whatever, just put my head back on my body and spray me with water please," mouthed Kenna very quickly.
"What?" asked Ellie. Kenna rolled her eyes.
"Water," mouthed Kenna with a furrowed brow.
"Can you go slower please," asked Ellie.
"W-A-T-E-R," Kenna mouthed more slowly and pronounced, pointing at the sink with her eyes.
"That's right. That's right. Your mutation works with water."
"Y-E-S," Kenna mouthed as sarcastically as she could. Elliot, still with the great reluctance one has when dealing with dismembered bodies, aligned her severed head with her severed neck.
"How much water do I need to use?" asked Ellie.
"A-L-O-T?" mouthed Kenna questionably. She had the inhibitor still adorned to her arm. What was the worst that could happen? Would her body heal too well?
"Are you sure this is going to work?"
"S-U-R-E", said Kenna, breaking eye contact. Despite Kenna's blatant lie Ellie proceeded to allow the sink to overflow onto the floor flooding where Kenna laid. At first nothing happened. As if there was some biological confusion occurring with the contradiction of life and death. Then everything went horribly wrong.
Even with both her pieces pressed together neither connected and reacted differently. Her head swelled at a normal even rate as if nothing had changed, but her body took a more horrible path. Without a brain to regulate the mutation her cells fought each other for supremacy. Bulbous tumors spread across her body. Limbs and digits raced each with an erratic pace. The inhibitor held back what it could but it was designed to fight the uniformity of her process not the rebellion that was occurring.
The floor creaked with the strain of history repeating itself. Ellie had turned off the water but the damage was done and threatened to collapse the room and rooms below like it had before. Ellie looked at Kenna's beachball of a head with confusion and betrayal in her eyes.
"P-O-R-T-A-L!" mouthed Kenna.
"I'm not going to send him this mess!" said Ellie.
"Send me first! I'll warn him!" Kenna mouthed impatiently.
"What!?"
"H-E-A-D F-I-R-S-T!"
"I'm not even sure it will go through. We've never," Ellie froze looking at the writhing mass, "that."
"T-R-Y O-R D-I-E!"
"Okay," Ellie pulled a marker from her bag and frantically wrote instructions on Kenna's face, "Do you think we need to mention Layla?" Kenna looked at her angrily as what Ellie had already written was now stretching across her expending skin. "Right! Right! Sorry!"
Ellie pressed her back against Kenna's head. It was like forcing an apple through a sink drain but Kenna's oversized was pulled through Ellie's back portal. Only to end up in the middle of another strange happening.
She was in the woods now. She welcomed the familiarity of the damp darkness of the school's foliage. The outside was vast and could handle what was to come. But as vast as it was, it wasn't empty. New construction surrounded her. Crude minimalist scaffolding held together half a geometrical dome draped with various electronics. Without a body it was difficult to take in the full scope of her surroundings or the sounds of struggle going on nearby.
"Hold up," said someone nearby. They sounded familiar not in the sound of the voice but in the way they talked. "Holy shit, what happened to you?" The younger looking man with long pink hair and rebellion in his eyes circled her intrigued by what popped out of Elliot.
"R-U-N," mouthed Kenna.
"Where's the rest of you? How are you alive? Are you literally too stupid to know when you're dead?"
"R-E-A-D."
"Read..what?" Kenna's face was clean. Sanitized by the portal she was pushed through. "The room? You want me to read the room for you? Well let's see." The pink haired man looked around in an overly sarcastic manner. "There's Elliot fighting Chudame for me over there. And, oh, there's Yuto putting the finishing touches on my redneck Cerebro over here. And last but not least there's a catatonic Jono playing the part of my battery. I'd say overall the mood is tense. For them, not for me. My mood is amazing. I mean, I'm about to win."
"W-H-A-T?" mouthed a confused Kenna.
"Look, I already explained everything to them when they came over here to stop me. Which, if I'm bragging, was all according to my plan. Sort of. That huge fire helped a lot. Props to whoever started that. It definitely sped things up."
"F-U-C-K."
"Here let me turn you over," he said, positioning Kenna's head in such a way that she could see the school, "Wouldn't want you to miss this."
"X-A-V-I-E-R."
"Oh fuck oh shit I completely forgot about good ol Charlie and his insane powers oh no. I got it covered. Yeah, he might figure out what's going on by that time it will be too late," he said, tapping her on the nose to punctuate his sentence.
"F-R-O-S-T?"
"Same verse same as the first. Me plus Cerebro means I win. Simple stuff even for you."
"Quire!" yelled Chudame.
"What? What do you want dumbass? Can't you see something way more interesting happening over here?" said the pink haired man. Chudame was covered in a solution of blood and sweat with one arm desperately covering his head with a sheet of tin foil while the others faced Elliot towards Quire.
Even under Quire's influence Elliot looked scared. His body spasmed with arcs of blue energy jumping from his chest with increasing frequency. A violent act that stressed the space around him. Reality itself bulged like a damn about to break. And with a sterile snapping sound his end of the portal opened.
The rest of Kenna had arrived. All at once and with some velocity. The event was so quick it felt like a bomb had just gone off. Wood and metal fell to the new flesh as what was Kenna's misshapen torso filled their space. Utterly destroying Quire's makeshift Cerebro in the process.
When the roar of destruction settled to a growl and the sounds of dominoing debris became less frequent Kenna finally grew brave enough to open her eyes. It was odd. Even when getting flung across the forest the first thing that came into view was the small but piercing light of the lavender candle. Still intact, pinched delicately in the air by a massive thumb and a twisted pointer of a finger. Half used and waning still.
Kenna popped her lips again. Partly to see if she could use echolocation, but mostly to get attention. Morse code crossed her mind, and how learning it would have been helpful. But what she lacked in niche communication skills she made up in pure volume. Her giant head made for giant pops.
Finally footsteps. Finally, breathe. Finally signs of life around her. First distant then close. They were coming from the direction of the school. The noise came with light. A flashlight. It obscured the figure as much as it illuminated everything else.
What parts of the scene she could see was grizzly. Brief stills of metal and gore. Hers? There's? It was all mixed together and hard to discern with peripherals alone.
The light traveled back and forth between her two swollen parts. The new party was certainly inquisitive, but not much for introductions. Kenna popped once more to show she was still alive, in a way. It might have worked too well. The light fell to the ground and they went to work.
First they reattached Kenna's head back to her body. No equipment was used. The cells in her body simply obeyed their touch. Kenna felt the entire process. Bones fusing, skin mending, a nervous system starting back up.
The rest of body corrected itself as her agency returned. The tumors shrank into her skin, her proportions evened out, and air returned to her lungs. What was once body horror had returned to body harmony. It was more than that even. Small but noticeable, there were changes occurring within.
"No," she said with her first breath.
"Don't worry," said Elixir, "You're fine now."
Kenna impaled him like a skewer. The long jagged rebar she found entered where his shoulder and neck met and exited right above his hip. It was a quick and decisive action born from desperation. She had to break his touch before he could disable her, or control her, or fuse her together in some horrible way.
She wanted to throw him. Launch him as far away from her as monstrous size would allow, but that wouldn't end anything. Prof. Lehnsherr was right. There was a futility in running from her problems. Especially from Elixir. She needed someone more long term. So, hunched over with cold breath and shivering hands she began digging.
"What were you doing to me?" Asked Kenna. Elixir tried to speak but only blood came out. His torso bulged as his organs moved themselves around.
"Just finishing my work," said Elixir with a wheeze.
"You were doing something else. I can feel it in my chest."
"Your mutation had a flaw. I fixed it."
"How?"
"Take a deep breath."
"You first," said Kenna. She dropped him into what she considered a shallow grave but was conservatively twenty feet deep and buried him. He wouldn't die. She knew this all too well, but at least she knew he couldn't move or do anything. And that was enough for now. All that was left to do now was to fill the hole with her hands. Hand? She was missing a hand. The hand which the inhibitor had been placed upon was missing and in its place was a perfectly healed nub.