The stars above the Black Hellfire Clubs grounds blazed brilliantly in the ebony black sky. The wind slowly, recpectively wafted through the gardens, and all the animals within remained silent. The prestigious, ivory covered buildings loomed darkly in the centre, like crouching giants waiting for prey. Through the windows were many scenes. In the head Inner Circle building, Silver's desk lamp clawed to keep the darkness back, as the Black King stayed up late reading reports for his business meeting the next morning. His eyes scanned sleepily over the pages, as he wondered why the hell he was doing this. A few windows over, to the right, the Black Queen known only as Nemesis also sat up. She was awake, however, for different matters. She spoke on the phone, a conversation held with a reporter from the Daily Bugle. She was attempting to find ways to convince him to drop his exposŽ on the dealings of the Club.
"What do you mean you can't be bought? Everyone can be bought! Name your price. Money? Women? Men, perhaps?" she listened furiously as the reporter made some speech about honor, and the publics right to the truth, and then even more furiously listened to the dial tone as the reporter hung up. She flung the phone across the room in a fit of rage, smashing it against the marble wall. Perhaps he couldn't be bought, but he'd at least have the decency to die, she reasoned, as she went about the arrangements for Mr. Benjamin Urich to be... removed from the equation. Further away, in the smaller but no less noble building set up for the Advocates accommodations, another light punctured the cold darkness. This light belonged to the young Scribe, Avalon. Inside his rather lavish room, he sat panting and sweating on his bed, his nightmare still lingering in his mind. It had been so intense, so real. Flashes of his past, slashing their way through his mind. Places, pain, faces, pain, labs, pain, people, pain. It hadn’t been the first time his sleep had been disturbed by dreams like this. In fact, it happened regularly, waking him every night. He used his electromagnetic abilities to float from the bed over to the door. He opened it, and quietly flew down the hallway to the bathroom. The Advocates may have rooms which mirrored the Inner Circle’s lavishness, but they had neither their size nor their privacy of their own bathroom. He came to the room he sought and entered it, moving directly to the faucet. He turned on the tap, wet his hands and splashed the water on his face. His hair tendrilled down his face, as always getting into his eyes. He wet it back, and stared into the mirror. Quietly he spoke, reassuring himself.
"That was year ago. Why does it still affect you? You're in the BHC now. Everything's...better..." That last comment reverberated through his mind. Was everything truly better? He believed so, but he had never really ever had good times, so he didn’t know what to compare the present to. He stopped his doubts, turned off the tap and hovered back to his room, blue light emanating from his electric field bouncing of the walls as he went. He had to get some sleep. His days were always full now, and they were especially full whenever the Inner Circle had a meeting, like the did the next day. He yawned, and tumbled to his bed, the sheets greeting him on his return. He would lay awake for hours, pondering, and when morning would arrive, he would wish it hadn't of.
Avalon hurriedly flew over the grounds the next morning, still adjusting his uniform in many places. He was late, and the Inner Circle didn't accept tardiness, especially in their Scribes. He made his way to the principal office, blazing in a blue ball of energy through the doors, down corridors and eventually he found himself near the grand hall in which the meetings took place.
All eyes were on Avalon as he bursted into the room, not in his usual undisturbing manner, and hurried to his place, nervously muttering his apologies as he made his way to his seat. He sat down and drew out the records from the past meeting, along with a pen for the dictating of this one.
"Well," said a rather impatient King Silver "Now that our Scribe has decided to make his appearance , we can start our meeting. Advocate Avalon, if you feel you're settled in yet, may you read the minutes?" Avalon winced. The King was far more biting than usual. The Scribe didn't know, however, that Jack Silver had a heavily important meeting for his pharmaceutical company to attend, and that the hold up had pushed back the time frame which had been so carefully constructed last night. The minutes were read, the topics discussed, the new business, such as the Queen's need for money to deal with a security problem, was taken care of, and by the end of the forty-five minutes, the King quickly hurried for the door, leaving everyone wondering where he was off to in such a manner. The Queen was the next to leave, in the company of her Princess Siryn, with a smirk upon her face. She would see how incorruptible this Urich reporter truly was. As he packed up, Avalon cursed himself for being so reckless before. There was no time, however, as he had to get to his training session with the Upstarts and Marauders. He didn't understand why this was necessary, though. He had such great control of his powers now, and being the only Advocate there was embarrassing to say the least. He was too young to be taken seriously by his superiors and peers, and the others his age so him more as a rank then someone to hang out at the mall with. Nevertheless, he was obligated to attend, and Gomurr the Ancient was a stickler for time.
The Headmaster ground his teeth against each other. Certainly, the boy had responsibilities, but that didn't mean he could use his position to hold up the right for the other students to learn. Gomurr decided he'd wait another two minutes, in which if Avalon didn't appear, he would be indexing ancient scrolls and manuscripts for the next few months. The other students all watched their teacher as he became gradually more and more frustrated. DarkWolf leant over to Monet and whispered "Geez, it looks like the little guy's gonna explode. What do you reckon will come out when he does?" The girl giggled slightly, and was dealt a stern glance by her short teacher. Certainly his physical frame wasn't very intimidating, but he had mastered the art of the evil eye for sure. It was then that Avalon came stumbling through the door, his grand uniform tripping him up as he went.
"And where have you been for so long, Avalon?" asked Gomurr in his stern tone. The boy nervously flicked the hair from his eyes and addressed his teacher. "We went overtime in the meeting, sir. I'm sorry I'm late, but it couldn't be helped." he didn't mention the fact it was his fault that the meeting had gone too long. Gomurr glared at him, deciding in his mind whether or not to punish the boy. The old man's face cracked into a fatherly type grin, as he said "Such things can't be helped, I suppose. As long as you weren't off taking the giggle tobacco I guess I can forgive. Take your seat...and don't ever be late to class again, or you'll be arranging my attack staffs in order of which I received them." Avalon bashfully retreated to his seat, and all the class couldn't help but think that the Ancient's leniency had come from the Scribe's position.
"Today," began Gomurr, interrupting the thoughts of everyone attending "We learn about the mutate's dormant psionic gene. The gene which every mutant possesses, but few actually ever manage to discover."
"Mutant gene?”" blurted the Demon Lord Belasco from his oddly darker corner of the room "Why the hell are we learning **** like that?!? It's going to be of no use to me. Your being discriminatory, old man." Gomurr smiled like a snake towards the demon sitting in his class.
"Tell me, Belasco, what is the purpose of learning? To gain knowledge, of course. That is what anyone would tell you. It's a simple answer. So I teach you about a mutant gene. So that means you can't take advantage of it, and peep into the thoughts of others, so what? Knowledge is power, Belasco, and the more knowledge you have, the more power you have. In case that was too long a come back for you, shut up and listen!" The class chuckled, and Belasco accepted his defeat by the short man. He'd press on, but he'd received too many detentions lately. If he was forced in to cleaning the old guy's toilet again, he'd start Armageddon himself. This was know way for the Demon Lord of Limbo to be treated.
The class finished, and everyone attending gave a sigh of relief. They all much preferred being out on the field learning their skills in a hands on way, rather than being locked in the cavernous class room studying from texts and listening to the headmaster. Everyone shuffled out in mass of sarcastic jokes and laughing. As Avalon separately made his way to the door, Gomurr called out to him "Wait, Black Scribe Avalon. I need your help. I've been told to get copies of the information found in my archives onto the BHC computer network hard drive for easy reference. I'm afraid, however, that these new fangled computer contraptions have their own brand of magic, meaning they won't do a thing I ask. Perhaps, if you're not to busy..."
"Sure," sighed Avalon "Why not."
He followed the grateful Gomurr into his office and began typing into the computer as the Ancient headmaster dictated his memorized manuscripts.
It was midnight when Avalon returned to his room, the next few weeks booked up to transfer all Gomurr's information into the computer system. He sighed at the thought, and fell onto his bed, exhausted. He rolled over, and turned the light off. It wasn't long before he was asleep, and the nightmarish memories once again raced throughout his mind.
Outside, in the darkened grounds, a dark figure stood. He belonged to none of these pathetic groups that housed in these overly lush buildings, nor did he want to be. He had watched from a distance as Avalon had flown overhead in his magnetic aura, and continued watching when the boy had arrived at his room and gone to sleep. After all this time, the youth had been located. The master would be extremely pleased....