The Happiest Place on Earth

[Jane]

Disneyland in August was hot and dry, and full of people. Locals came to enjoy the cheaper rates, and tourists paid full price for the right to stand in line, ride the rides, and eat the overpriced food. Jane licked the remnants of a churro off her fingers, tossing the paper wrap into a nearby garbage can.

The paper bounced off the rim and hit the ground. A smiling employee quickly swept it up and moved on, as if they'd never been there. Keeping the large park clean was almost a mutant ability in and of itself.

Jane walked on through New Orleans Square, eyeing the long lines for the Pirates ride. She lingered by the waterfront, scratching her nose under her sunglasses. Touching her ear to activate her two way earpiece, she said, "Is everyone in position?"

While she waited for her brothers and sisters to check in, Jane started walking again. It had been a relatively quiet month for the Brotherhood. Since the rally on the steps of the courthouse at the end of June they'd been involved in stirring the pot, as it were, in a million small ways. There had been a huge mutant caused incident in Los Santos in July, which they had not been directly involved in but certainly appreciated. La Raza had taken care of the Nectar supply chain, but it was time to take the next step.

Disneyland had an unofficial Mutant Day, where you were encouraged to come and let your freak flag fly, but that was just insulting. A bone thrown to those considered different, and who were not wanted around the masses. A carefully calculated nice gesture, but ultimately worthless. So, they were going to see how the happiest place on earth reacted to a few mutants walking around just being themselves.

[Phedre Kallianos]

"Asímantoi ánthropoi..."

The young mutant cursed under her breath as sat on the edge of the semi-circular dock that was part of an 'island' configuration in the park. Fingers pushed the end of her ponytail back over her slender shoulder, before adjusting the knot of her halter. Something about Tom Sawyer and Pirates, the overly cheerful signs had exclaimed. She paid them no mind.

It afforded her a central location from which she could manipulate multiple sources of water. Boats of screaming, helpless humans...it almost reminded her of the tourist season back home. It was just too easy to play on their fear of the unknown, which took on such a plethora of shapes when it concerned water. Octopi large enough to wrap around ships, sharks that made Jaws look like a guppy, and her favorite, a kraken.

Though sadly, there wasn't enough water for a proper kraken in this measly man-made...puddle.

Not to worry though - the humans gallivanting around on the steamboat, canoes, and the nearby Splash Mountain would soon have a new sort of fear of the water.

Phedre lifted a hand to her ear and tapped the sleek little communicator that rested there. "Ready here." Phedre replied, adding a little wave as she caught sight of Jane across the water. From behind her, a little voice exclaimed that the lady sitting down had paint on her back. Her mother shushed her, muttering something rude about people with tattoos. The child soon shrieked in terror as the slushy she was carrying erupted into a mass of slithering tentacles that sent cherry flavor everywhere.

She smiled. It was going to be a really good day.

[Flux]

Flux haaaaated being here. After his years in prison, a place like this was sensory overload. Too many mundanes, not enough mutants. The sun was baking him, especially since he'd been required to wear thick jeans and a long under-armor shirt beneath his t-shirt to hide the metal bands that would maximize the effectiveness of his powers. Additionally, said powers were interfering with their communication pieces. The only way he knew Jane from Phedre (ugh, mundane names...even using them as "cover" aggravated him) was the authority behind Jane's commands. He poked his ear piece, pretending to scratch, and replied.

"Anytime."

The word was maybe a little too curt, but he was running out of patience. He looked about from where he sat on a bench made wholly of glorious metal, painted over to keep the sun from turning it into a grill. In fact, it seemed the entire park was made of thick, sturdy metal, all the better to keep structural incidents from blemishing the park's reputation. None of it was up to the par of the metal walls that he'd tried to shear in Jericho's secret labs, which were called Below. He couldn't wait to hear the news report and find out how much money he'd cost the mundanes in damages.

[Billy O'Neill]

Billy drew in a careful breath, and tried to focus on nothing.

It was harder than it sounded. Every time you felt like your mind was successfully cleared, a stray thought came along, and then that one led you to another, and another. The risk of his conscious mind stumbling across anything that matched a Shift that his subconcious had learned was slim; but he knew it would happen eventually. Maybe it'd be something innocent, and he'd remember how to turn his eyes green. Maybe he'd grow a tail, or earn a set of pointed tips on his ears.

Or maybe he'd grow a few feet, bulk out to a few times his normal bodyweight, and turn into the Jolly Green Giant's abominable slate-purple cousin.

He drew another breath, more hastily that time. Those were exactly the sorts of thoughts he was trying to avoid.

He reached for his ear, tugging gently at his earlobe to disguise activating his comm, his eyes - subconsciously adapted to focus at longer distances; he hadn't meant for that to happen, damn it - settling upon the ex-con and the swimsuit model. "Lets get this over with," he grunted.

[Jane]

"Don't be too impatient, Titan," Jane said quietly. "Tron, what's it looking like where you are?"

"We're on schedule. Security was, predictably, tight. Was. In position and waiting for the waterworks to start."

"You heard the man, Amnis, time to play." Jane looked across the water to where she knew the hydrokinetic mutant was waiting.

[Stern]

Michael Stern tumbled off a roller coaster holding onto his wife's hand. It'd been a long time since the MCU Captain had a weekend off. He planned to make the most of it. It seemed he and Anita didn't have much time just to have fun and be a couple. Today that would finally happen. In fact, it had been happening fine.

He'd have to thank Jackson for the tickets. Again.

Stern put an arm around Anita's waist and kissed her gently on the cheek.

"Where to next, Love? Shall we see the Pirates water ride?"

[Anita Stern]

She soaked up every minute of time she managed to squirrel away with her husband. Such time was hard to get – fleeting, yes, very fleeting – but she understood the good it did, the good he did and it was enough. It made her proud of him, and a little pride for herself to be the one he came home to. Still, she missed teaching, missed the bustle of students. Life here on the opposite side of the continent from Cullen’s, from Toronto and Montréal and snow – the difference of culture, too – was still a bit to get used to. She could get used to the heaping hours of sun (though it could be consistently warmer than what she was used to) and that was certainly a start.

For all the things she had done in her life, the places she had been, everything she had experienced, she’d never, ever been to Disneyland. Somehow that was inexcusable, so here she was. Anita leaned into Stern and nodded.

“That sounds good, honey.” She said, snaking an errant strand of soft, brown hair back behind her ear. “The water would be a welcome reprieve from this unfortunate heat. But I really do like it here in California.”

She laughed small, nudging him.

“It seems to really be good for you.”

[Phedre Kallianos]

"You say the sweetest things, Zombie."

Amnis' skin rippled and disappeared as she flowed upwards and reformed, standing on the edge of the dock. In turn, unease rippled through the crowd that had formed around her, the crowd that had simply wanted to watch the antique steamboat putter by.

She slid her legs over the railing and leapt down to the water's surface, wrinkling her nose slightly as it swirled and rippled around her ankles, helpfully holding her up. "Gah...what the hell do they put in this water? It feels like its liquid chlorine." she muttered, walking out across the surface to place herself several meters from the edge of the dock.

That way everyone had a good view.

Her hands were raised up, palms facing down as two water spouts formed and spun up to caress her skin. Amnis flung her hands apart and fed them more water, watching the first crash head long into the steamboat. It slithered over the craft's surface like so many wriggling eels, splashing across decks and people alike before making their way back into the lagoon.

The second whirled higher than the first, spinning past the canoes that were just leaving the the Davy Crockett Explorer dock. Instead, it slammed into the pirate ship, a little harder than she'd intended it to, but least the craft was empty as it was between shows and the cast's break time. Water flowed over and around it, washing anything that wasn't secured down, overboard to become so much flotsam.

Amnis let loose her control and allowed the water to crash back into the lagoon as spectacularly as it had risen. Waves rippled everywhere, one of which she harnessed to bring her back to the dock. It carried her up and over the railing, soaking the idiots that were frozen with fear. The wave withdrew, and her laughter was lost amidst the fleeing screams.

She lifted a hand to flick her ponytail back over her shoulder and brushed the comm device in her ear. Just as she was about to speak, however, she was interrupted by a number of park employees, all of whom sported very official looking ID and name tags.

"I'm afraid we're going to have to ask you to leave-"

"Leave?" she replied, arching a sculpted brow as she rested her hands on her hips. "Leave the self-proclaimed 'Happiest Place On Earth'? I thought everyone was welcome here."

The group back away slightly, noticing that the swirling water her eyes had become was darkening to match the now angry, roiling waters of the lagoon.

Amnis lifted her chin towards them, fingers forming fists where they balanced on her hops, her posture speaking volumes toward the anger she was trying to keep in check. "Please tell me I can drown at least one of these fool sheep..." she hissed under her breath, only loud enough for the comm device to pick up.

[Flux]

Flux sighed with relief. It'd been a constant, active effort to remember to use mundane names. Now that the plan was in motion, he could go back to their true names. He felt it like a weight off his shoulders.

"Hold on, Sister," he answered to Amnis. "Why stop at one? Let me gather you a whole school of little fish to play with."

Flux breathed deep, feeling the park's metals, and began to polarize everything he could reach. He started simply enough. The park's gates slid and swung shut, magnetized together so strongly that they could not be opened, even by the swell of fleeing mundanes. Next, he spread his focus to the metal lampposts and benches. These were rooted firmly in the ground and groaned as they slowly began to work free.

[Jane]

Jane's voice cut in sharply over the comm. "I do not want any of us responsible for the deaths of children. Remember that! Let the mundanes tear themselves apart if they want, our object here is fear and mayhem, not murder."

[Billy O'Neill]

Our object here is fear.

The words echoed in Billy's ears. He could already feel his heart rate quicken; already feel the electric heat as his blood pumped something to every extremity.

Our object is fear.

He heard it before he felt it; the strain of growing shoulders against fabric. He grabbed at his shirt, tearing it in two as the darkening skin of his barrel chest began to swell underneath. Cuffs were shredded; pain registered, but it was dull and distant, instinctive measures set in place to protect him from such things.

Our object is fear.

Socks burst as his feet doubled in size; his shoes were already abandoned. He'd broken too many doing this. Rookie mistake. Seams popped on his shirt shoulders; dark hair began to droop down over his eyes. His vision clouded, his eyes transformed.

Our object is -

[Titan]

Fear.

Tearing off the last fragments of his clothing, Titan let out a feral snarl as once more he came into being. Eyes of fire shone out from beneath his eternal scowl, framed by the deep purple that his skin had become.

He could smell the panic of those around him; smell their hormones, and other things that their bodies released in response to his appearance. Some recoiled. Some simply stared.

His voice tumbled out as a deepened growl. "Run."

No one moved. Fear rooted them to the spot. Titan's scowl darkened. He threw his arms out, a scream bellowing from the depths of his car-sized chest.

"RUN!"

[Stern]

Stern held hands with Anita on the way to the Pirates ride. He took point, pushing through the crowd and finding the best way through. The closer they got to the Pirates ride, the thicker the crowd became. It was no surprise. On a hot day water rides would be the big thing.

"Hold close to me, Honey." Stern took his wife by the wrist where he could grip her better and pulled her close behind him.

A few seconds more and he could not go any further. People were pushing against him. Hard. They were moving away from the ride. Some looked afraid. In the distance he could hear screams. He needed to get to the side of the footpath. His instincts as a police officer told him something was fishy about the way they were acting.

"Darling, can you get a read on these people? What's the matter with them?"

[Anita Stern]

She clung to him. What Michael asked was not an issue to fulfill. As soon as whatever was occurring came far enough from the source to reach her, as people pushed in a throng past her, brushing against her, she knew. Over and over and over she knew. And it wasn't just a feeling.

"Fear. Disbelief. Fear."

She breathed, her eyes shifting this way and that, pointed to the ground, but the focus in the real wasn't there. Information floated past her and she picked through it at a startling pace, skidding to a halt on the stuff that said the most.

"Water... tentacles... metal groaning and twisting, corralling them. People are being herded by a beast and driven like sheep wildly afraid."

She lifted her eyes to Michael.

"Mutants, Michael. Wreaking havoc."

[Phedre Kallianos]

It was pleasure, pure and simple. The screams were like music to her ears, and Flux's comment only made her grin slither further over to wicked.

Between Flux and Titan, Phedre had more than enough little fish to terrorize. She laughed aloud, the sound more akin to rippling water than anything else. Spinning in place with her arms flung wide, she let go of her human form and embraced what she considered her natural one. A pillar of crystal-blue water that was vaguely feminine shaped, as if an illustration of a water spirit had lept from the page of a storybook.

A wave crashed over the front of the dock, surging to her 'feet' and bearing her back out into the lagoon. The water roiled and whipped itself into a frenzy around her, tentacles lashing out in every direction. People were screaming in a delicious panic as the frantic crew of the steamboat struggled to restart it.

Zombie's directive, however, echoed in her ears, and forced Amnis to clamp tightly down on her desire to drag them all down to their deaths. Instead, she sent a surge to shove the boat to the lagoon's edge, leaving it stranded and splintering in the knee-deep water.

Tentacles and crashing waves created a gauntlet of sorts, forcing the little fishies to huddle together as they tried to avoid them. The unlucky souls who tried to run and failed were soon sucked into the lagoon and disappeared from sight, only to be deposited seconds later on the island behind her. Perfectly safe, but terrified past the point of sense.

[The Brotherhood]

Most people came to Disneyland for the rides, shows, and characters. Tron had come to a sterile, windowless room filled to the ceiling with whirring server racks. It was buried deep in carefully concealed office buildings that lined the east side of Tomorrowland, a hub that was networked with all the park's centrally controlled systems, like the PA, the lights, and the security cameras. With his bare arms coiled in cables to guarantee maximum surface contact with the system, Tron was currently enjoying live feeds from every sector of the park, including several angles of Amnis's stunning displays of hydrokinetics. Forget talking frogs and Dwayne Johnson - Disney should sell movies of this shit. They'd make a killing. Ha - a killing.

Tron grinned as he zoomed two cameras in for a stereoscopic view of Phedre's chest and her now very wet and clingy top. "Lookin' good, Amnis! The cameras love you, babe. What say we add some mood music?"

With flick of his eyes, he pulled up his own personal remix and started blaring it out of every loudspeaker in the park:

It's a world of laughter, a world of tears
It's a world of hope, it's a world of fear-
it's a world of fear-
it's a world of fear- fear- fear- f-f-f-f-f-eeeeaaaaarrrr

We- are- coming- aaaafter- you- all!

[Jane]

Jane kept walking nonchalantly along the waterfront, watching Amnis wreak havoc while It's a Small World music was piped through the carefully hidden speakers that seeded the park. The words were different than she remembered, however, and if she hadn't known that Tron was behind it it would have creeped her out as much as it did the people all around her.

For a moment the remixed music was drowned out by the shriek of stressed metal, and she turned her head to see lamp posts bending down and creating fences where none had been before. Her mouth formed into a firm line as mothers and fathers scooped up their children and looked for safe places to run as the water in the lagoon seemed the largest threat.

Until Titan, that is. The mutant was blocking what had been the exit into Frontierland, his purple body towering above the tourists and locals. Some were actually still taking pictures and laughing, imagining, Jane supposed, that this was all an elaborate show put on by Disney.

They were trying to make an omelette - it was time to crack a few eggs. "Boomer, we need some fireworks."

"Got it, boss." The Jamaican mutant was mingling with the crowd, and then bright spheres of energy came soaring up from his location. There were some oohs and aahs amidst the growing screams, and then the bomblets fell to earth, exploding in the trees and catching a building on fire. The running began in earnest, people looking for anywhere to go and finding nearly all avenues blocked by the mutant menace.

[Flux]

"No murder?" Flux mock-grumbled to himself. "What am I supposed to do with my reputation, then?" The lampposts came free and whirled through the air, landing into the brick with such force that they became the bars of a cage, ensnaring small groups of mundanes and injuring several more. He keyed his comm. "Want more cages? I can do more cages."

He was trying to be deferential to Zombie's authority. After discovering that his antics at the bridge in New York hadn't gone over as well as he'd believed, he was trying to take a lower key. Learn what it was he was "supposed" to do for the cause. It aggravated him. He wanted to cut loose.

[Stern]

Stern reached the side of the walkway with his hand firmly gripping Anita's arm. He noticed a small side area meant for employees who needed to go "behind the scenes" for repair work on the rides. Quick as a flash, Michael Stern yanked Anita Stern into the space, pressed her back to the concrete, and stood close to her. Eye to eye, nose to nose, it might have been romantic if people weren't screaming mere feet away.

"Sweetheart, listen to me." He took her small, soft hand in his. "I love you. These mutants, wherever they are, whoever they are, have to be stopped. And," he swallowed as he brought himself around to saying what he needed to say, "I need your help. I can't do this on my own. Can I count on you?"

[Anita Stern]

"Michael..."

Her eyes drifted out and away from his face, glancing to the outside, the fingers of her free hand curling into a fist and worry coming etched into her features.

"...I'll..." She dragged her eyes away from the frenzied sight of confusion and fear and the madness. "...I'll do whatever it takes."

Worries had already begun to settle in her own stomach. She swallowed, offering him a smile of wavering confidence. Anita breathed in long and slow, then closed her eyes and breathed out in much the same fashion, doing as best as she could to will the pit of anxiety away. A shudder, and her eyes opened once again, seeking out his eyes thereafter.

"What do you need?" She said, her voice but a whisper.