Marvel: A Tale of Shadows

As they arrived at the venue they were surprised by the security.

"I suppose this is because of the recent incidents?" Felicia observed as they stared at the security that was roaming around outside of the venue where the chess tournament was taking place. They had several security companies roaming around including some with the names of Stark and Oscorp insignia on the vests.

Ethan nodded and grunted as they walked to the entrance. They walked through a metal detector while putting their items in a basket that went through an x-ray machine.

"You two are good. Go on through." Ethan frowned as they were welcomed in without anyone asking for a form of identification. Taking a closer look the guards seemed bored and acting rather… lazy. He could already tell this might bite them in the ass. But he only shook his head, he felt like he has been noticing more stuff like this since he started training with Paine.

As Felicia led the way to one of the areas used by the schools. When they arrived they saw Forge in his Hawaiian shirt and a burly blue furred man in a suit and tie. Then the last person was a woman with red hair and dressed in white shirt, red jacket, and jeans.

As Felicia walked in she noticed several of the children looked at her but only the blue furred one glanced at them and raised an eyebrow in surprise. He then stood up and… walked? Can it really be called walking when his feet were clearly hands? But Ethan only stared in surprise for a second before he shook it off.

"Hello, I am Mr. McCoy. But you can call me Hank. I assume you-" He pointed at Felicia, "are Felicia Hardy but-" he then turned to Ethan, "I do not know who you are."

Felicia smiled and offered a hand to shake, "It is a pleasure to meet you Mr. McCoy, and this is my boyfriend. He will be picking me up from the school when we are done. I thought it would be good for you to at least see his face first to avoid any problems."

Hank was surprised but then shook Felicia's hand, then Ethan's when he offered it immediately afterwards. "Well then it is a pleasure to meet you as well…?"

"Ethan Hilt." Ethan suddenly felt a sense of dread. He looked around but saw nothing different for the moment. He shook it off quickly, "pleasure to meet you."

"Come, I will bring you to the other teachers to do a quick meet and greet." Hank then walked, leading them to the other three who were gathered in a circle at the moment. "From right to left you have Daniel Eagle but he prefers Forge. Jean Grey." Then the beast turned and pointed at them, "gang, let me introduce the new tutor Felicia Hardy and her boyfriend Ethan Hilt, she brought him because he will be the one picking her up from our school."

They both looked Ethan over. Forge immediately recognized them from the incident at the Stark thing. Next was Jean who gave Ethan one look and frowned.

Ethan tapped a device that was around his ear and slightly leaned his head so she could see it better. Once she saw it she made an 'o' face and nodded in understanding.

"I remember you two, you were at the Stark Youth Center." Forge nodded then offered his hand to shake. Felicia shook his hand while Ethan instead noticed that Jean suddenly looked at her phone.

"Yes we were coming to look at the tech expo when that… stuff happened." Felicia stated as she glanced at the students who were vaguely interested in her.

"Well, I would like to thank you and your boyfriend again." Forge iterated.

Jean spoke up while looking at her phone, "I apologize for the impromptuness but it appears the elementary school student tournament is done. So I would like to grab Felicia and take the middle school students to their tournament." The others nodded in understanding.

"Ooo… sounds fun. Lead the way. See you later Ethan." Felicia stated while waving Ethan off.

Ethan got the signal and nodded his head and left through the door. He walked down the hall and just got to the entrance as he could hear the doors opening as students walked out of the hallway of school designated rooms and entered the main area. Ethan decided to watch as they walked into the main room.

He did not have to wait long as they very quickly siphoned into the room. Ethan waved again at Felicia as the door closed. But as he was about to leave he heard a ding from his phone and pulled it out.

He frowned when he looked at the notification he saw. One thing to know about Ethan is that he has multiple applications and alterations on his phone to alert him in case anything strange happens in his vicinity or anything he is keeping an eye out for.

Such as the current case of his phone suddenly losing service and any form of digital connection. He quickly looked around and noticed that of the guards around there were only the Oscorp hired hands. He also noticed that some of them were glancing at their phones and looking around like they were waiting for something.

But Ethan did not have to wait long as a sudden bout of flame struck the x-ray machine and metal detector. The guards backed off in fear as the flame seemed to be alive as it attached itself to both devices before melting them down and then flying back above the palm of a young blonde man that was cackling crazily. Following behind him a blob of a person shoved a car out of the way as he walked to the entrance while another hopped from surface to surface like a frog.

Ethan quickly moved out of sight behind a pillar while the rampaging trio made it into the lobby. Once in the lobby the blonde man quickly tapped his ear with a frown.

After a few seconds he just shrugged, "whatever the earbuds must be broken." Then the blob man came bounding to the door and kicked the door off the hinges. While Ethan became confused because if they were using earbuds it meant they weren't the ones sending the jamming signal.

Looking back at the guards he noticed that some of them were typing something on their phones. Probably communicating through a radio channel application. Ethan snuck back into the hallway where the remaining Xavier students were. Avoiding both the invading mutants and the wandering eyes of the Oscorp employees. When he stepped into the hall he saw several teachers and staff staring at him quizzically, including Mr. McCoy.

Ethan quickly turned to the closest teacher and whispered to him, "have a teacher or adult representative of each school come here. I need to speak with all of you." Ethan's serious tone is probably what made the person follow his order unquestioningly.

The teacher started moving around quickly to each school section and speaking with each of them. Meanwhile Ethan started fiddling with his phone until he got to the right app and then pointed his camera at the wall. He was using his phone to see through the wall, it was a concept he fiddled with that involved using something similar to using a bats echo to map an area, sort of like how a radar worked.

A minute later there were eight teachers gathered behind him as he watched an armed group through the wall gather in the main area. He frowned and turned to the teachers, "so there are two things that are happening. The first one is that a trio of mutants are attacking the venue. Considering we have not heard anything yet I am guessing they are fine." Some of the teachers glance at Mr. McCoy with annoyance while some with pity. Because if it happened rarely in public, how often did these groups annoy them in private?

"Something tells me that is not all." Mr. McCoy states with a frown. After glancing at Ethan's phone earlier he saw what he saw and was now listening in on the other room and could hear the cocking of guns.

Ethan nods in confirmation, "seems someone was expecting them and set a trap, hence why the police have not shown up. So we are going to evacuate the students in these rooms. I assume Mr. McCoy has an evacuation plan in case something like this happened." Mr. McCoy nodded in confirmation. One of the annoyed teachers opened his mouth to speak but Ethan's hand covered his mouth before he could say anything, "okay we will follow Mr. McCoy's evacuation route and once we are out of the jamming signals range we will contact the authorities."

The teachers nodded but the one whose mouth was covered seemed about ready to blow a gasket. So Ethan looks him straight in the eye, "if you raise your voice or yell any obscenities I will knock you out and have Mr. McCoy carry you like a bag of excess shit. Understood?" Ethan's threatening tone and presence sends a shiver down all of the teacher's spines.

The annoyed teacher nodded while gulping. "Good, now evacuate quietly. I am going to watch the door in case they decide to come in here." Ethan then turns back to the door as the teacher's go to evacuate the students. He was watching the room again and saw that there were several more people in the room now and some were looking far more unique. He watched for a few minutes as they moved around before one of them that looked like he was wearing some furs turned and started walking towards the door he was standing on the other side of.

Ethan looks back and sees they are almost done with the evacuation. He looks at Mr. McCoy who is looking his way. Ethan mouths, 'I will distract them.' Then before he could turn around and cause a distraction there was crunching and shattering of wood. Then he feels a hand… no with nails like that it seems more like a claw is on his shoulder.

Before he can even react he is feeling the pain of being pulled through a door and flying across a room and sliding on the floor for a few feet before he stops. He lets out a grunt of air in pain as his dizzy vision quickly clears and he is looking up into the face of a woman with dark green hair and lipstick. As well as a man in an armored suit with red and black coloring, he wore a gas mask that had red lenses in the eyeholes.

"Umm… who is this?" A black haired woman with a snake asked with a slight germain accent.

The green woman only shrugged with a frown, "Sabretooth?"

The man with the claws and what looked like fur lining his battle gear walked towards them and spoke with a southern accent, "he was behind the door, could smell him." Sabretooth as he was apparently called pointed towards the now destroyed door that Ethan was hiding behind.

Ethan grunted in pain as he sat up, "and here I was thinking I took a good enough shower this morning. Maybe I need a better soap." The black haired woman kicked Ethan in the face.

While the green woman turned to one of the 'Oscorp' guards, "who is he and why was he there, you said they were all in that main room."

The guards shrugged, "we thought they were. I remember letting this guy in earlier; he did not have any obvious form of identification on him."

"Maybe it is because they did not check me. You hired some crappy lackeys." Ethan quipped again this time expecting the black haired woman to strike him. Thankfully he wasn't disappointed as the black haired woman's foot came down. Ethan grabbed it and kicked her other foot out from under her. Causing the woman to do the splits.

The scream of pain and surprise coming from the woman's mouth was jarring and attention grabbing. But as Ethan was expecting it he acted quickly to take advantage of their surprise. He was up and charging at a woman dressed in a white and green dress. By the time he was slamming her into the ground they had started to shake off their initial shock.

Ethan turned to find his next target only to see the man in black armor with red hydra regalia on it throwing a punch towards him. He quickly dodged and redirected some of his hits then threw one of his own towards the man's abdomen.

There was a crack as Ethan could feel some of his fingers breaking upon impact. He backed off in surprise which was his undoing because the next moment the man had kicked him and sent him flying.

He once again felt the unpleasantness of flying through a wooden door before he hit something heavy and bounced around a few times until he was staring up at the ceiling again. But this time a more pleasant sight beholds him as Felicia looks down at him with a quizzical look, "Ethan?"

"Felicia…" Ethan responded with a grunt of pain. As he could feel his hand was broken as well as some ribs. He was in pain.