Starchild

Too Many Visitors

Two siblings are missing, a king is dead, demons are interrupting human life, and there is a dead girl underneath my bed. It is my ninth day on Earth and things cannot stop happening.

—Some people at the Vatican might be possessed. —

Example number one.

It is obvious what comes next, isn't it? The Bartons rushing to their room and calling the X-Men, the wizards making up a plan as they go, and me being expected to know what to do. You know, the usual these days. A portal is opened and we appear in the same alleyway as last time, in the city where all of this mess started.

—Why would a demon willingly stay at the Vatican? Doesn't it hurt them? —Barney asks, pushing his sunglasses in.

I shrug, —If they stay away from holy symbols, they should be fine. —

A few meters away, I see the X-Men, dressed just like the first time. Raven nods at us as an acknowledgment. There are four of them missing, though. Xavier, Jubilee, Kurt, and Warren. I frown. —Not all of them are here. —

—They would attract too many stares, Star. —Strange mutters. —And we don't need all of them. Small groups work best. —

Still separated, we all enter the temple. Damn it, there are way more people than last time. All of them are tourists, of course, but also too many priests and nuns are in the main room. Not everyone is possessed. The demons are trying to go unnoticed.

—What's the plan? —

Too many things could go wrong. —We could tell the real priests about the situation, —I grimace at my own proposition, —We can silently exorcise the few demons without interrupting, or we could evacuate the building and be more comfortable. —

Strange sits down first at the benches, —How many of them? —

I look around for a moment, and sit down too. —About thirty. —

He closes his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath, and he puts his backpack on the floor in front of him, between his legs. The backpack moves a little by itself - inside it, Cloak and the exorcism kit wait to be used.

The X-Men sit at the opposite side of the room. Then, mass begins.

—I like the third idea, —Victoire whispers, —But how could we evacuate it? —

Barney looks at the other team, —The speedster. He could take everyone outside except for the possessed ones, and it would take less than a second. —

Wong shakes his head. —We're trying to be discreet. Moving at least a hundred people at high speeds will ring the alarms, and everyone would know the X-Men are here. We need something that doesn't immediately point at us. —

The public starts the first prayer.

After a few seconds, Barney frowns. He stays like that, listening to something in his earpiece. —Maximoff says there are fire alarms, and that he could pull them. —

—It alerts the fire department. It's like asking for attention. —Strange mutters,

—But, —Victoire thinks for a moment, —It would give us some minutes to act, and they could think of it as a false alarm. We'd just need to do this quickly. —

At this, Strange takes out his phone, looking for something, and the conversation falls into silence. The christians keep chanting and praying. I notice one of the mass helpers is definitely a demon, and they are visibly uncomfortable with the items surrounding them. I chuckle at that. Then, I realize almost no people in the crowd are possessed. Most demons are hidden as helpers.