Welcome to Gaia! ::

He heard the running footsteps and barely had a chance to see it was Marquis before the smaller boy smashed their lips together. Mattie was still scared shitless and unresponsive at first, but then dove into the kiss, completely dominating. He was about to reach up a hand to pull Marquis shoulders in closer, when the other boy was ripped away. He likes me.

It took a minute to register, the bite of peppermint still fresh in his mouth, but he heard someone telling Marquis to get his things. Why the hell was he packing? “What the hell is going on?”

He wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, but Jaye responded anyways taking his bloody time, a particularly sour look on his face. “They’re y’know. Expelling him.”

Mattie’s heart sunk to his stomach. Jaye said it in that way. They weren’t expelling him at all. They were going to ******** kill him. Like hell they were! Mattie turned and started to run towards the Gryffindor dorms, but Jaye’s grabbing of his wrist stopped him again. “Let go.” Mattie growled.

“No. You’re already too late.” Jaye responded flippantly. “Besides, don’t you think you’re better off?” He meant Agatha. ********. <********>. How could he even… Mattie felt a surge or rage boil and rip away through him. Marquis was ******** dead. And it was his own ******** fault. <********>. Mattie lashed out and punched Jaye square in the nose.

“Don’t ever mention her in relation to him again.” Mattie snarled. Jaye squealed and fled back to the Slytherin dorms. Like ******** if Mattie was going back there tonight. He wanted a ******** Firewhiskey.

Marquis would never quite remember what happened that night. Somehow he was back on the train heading back to London, but he wasn’t alone. Around ten or fifteen other students, all sullen looking, were there too. They crowded into one carriage, talking about the unfairness of it all and how inbred all the pure bloods were. Names and numbers were exchanged, and Marquis faced a very bemused uncle at King’s Cross station. There wasn’t much to say.

He was quickly sent off to a muggle private school and told to pick up the slack. And he did, excelling in the sciences fields and becoming a complete menace in the chemistry lab. It was no potions – something Marquis kept up when he could find the ingredients – but it was as close as he was going to get. He began part-time work at the weapons company, extending his ‘private research’ into bombs and other sorts of artillery that interested him. He kept up those contacts, slowly meeting more disgruntled muggle-borns. They slowly found themselves pushed out of the wizarding world, and Marquis had no way to contact Mattie at all.
Time passed. Marquis graduated and would have qualified easily for University, had The Leader not had intakes cut to just a handful each year. The muggle economy was going into a slippery slope with all the new restrictions, and people had no idea what was going on anymore. His uncle’s company was confiscated, and everything was moved underground. This was where those precious fifteen numbers came in handy. Marquis’ contact list grew, and before he knew it he was juggling messages between muggle-borns, holding meetings, and being elected to lead them. He still wasn’t sure how that had happened but now, at the age of twenty, he found himself crouched outside one of the Revolutionaries bases, guns in hands and bombs at the belt.

”Ready? Let’s go.” His anti-charm necklace hung heavy on his chest under his shirt and, blonde hair yanked back into a ponytail, they attacked.

Surprise and charms were their key. They weren’t here to kill, really, more to seize information. In the chaos that ensured, Marquis slipped upstairs.

Bacio was highly amused by the entire situation. Whatever they were doing in the long-run, well, she’d actually forgotten what they were doing in the long-run, but getting there really was fun! She always did like a bit of blood and gore, and bashing people up, So here she was, in the dungeons, feet slung over the arm of her chair and picking the remains of dinner out of her teeth with the tip of her wand. Not the picture of grace, but certainly effective.

”Right here, Sweetums.” She called back, not even bothering to move. Mattie would find her eventually. When he did, she arched a darkened eyebrow. ”S’been a while~”

”Don’t say that.” Marquis grumbled, twitching his nose a bit and pushing Mattie from his mind. It was best to just not think about the other boy now, it was a distraction more than anything else and he couldn’t afford to lose his concentration. He sent a wicked grin towards the ‘redcoat’ that Piper mentioned, twirling a bomb between lithe fingers and hurling it at the unsuspecting Revolutionary. ”Eh, who cares what they call em’selves? They’d wipe me out if they could. Go get’em, hun.”

Feeding on someone would keep Piper amused for a little while. It made Marquis a little ill, the way she did it, but whatever worked in war... right? It seemed the explosions from downstairs had lured most people there, so he was given a relatively straight-forward run to what he was looking for: The main office. Two, three jolts and a quick charm and the door was opened, and Marquis slipped inside. There was no reason to tell Piper where he was going, she always managed to find him.


If she was bemused by her loss of wand, Bacio certainly didn’t show it. A giggle escaped her lips as she swung herself off her perch, feet feeling the ground a little before she stilled, still grinning. She linked her fingers together, pressing them infront of herself so that the knuckles cracked. Satisfied, she dropped her hands and eyed Mattie.

”So there’s a fight going on up there,” she spoke as if he hadn’t just disarmed her. ”And we’re down here. How about we start on wandless spells, mm? Say, if something like this happens.”

She twisted her fingers, and Mattie’s wand flew from his hand an into her. She pointed it at him, looking like something from a horror movie.

Mattie scowled. He didn’t get how she did that. Without a wand, or whatever. But he knew what he could do. “Acacio, wand!”

The wand jerked back to his grip. Gods, he loved that spell. There was a loud wailing and a few not-so-manly screams coming from upstairs that Mattie shrugged off. Casualties already. They must be good, whoever was intruding. Maybe they’d kill Agatha for him. He could only hope. Mattie flicked his wand again and spat out a stunning curse. “Is that all?” He grumbled.

Usually Bacio could get him at his weak points where he really had to defend. Like, aim. Or being Veela. Whatever. He was getting better though. He could win a decent portion of the time. Something thudded on the ground above him, and he heard a woman giggle. Huh. Weird.

----

Speaking of Agatha, she’d decided she was going to “help”. Originally she was going to stalk Mattie to his training room, but changed her mind when she heard a rustling coming from the main office. Who the hell was that? No one was allowed to go in unless it was a direct order. Agatha looked at the broken lock and shoved the door open.

“Who the hell are you?” She snapped. He looked familiar for some reason. Gods he was short. “What are you, twelve? Get the ******** out before I blow your face off.”

Mattie scowled. What the hell was that supposed to mean? He wasn’t predictable. He did as she suggested though, after hearing more explosions. Hmph. It’d be difficult to clean up after. He hope the casualty number was low. Blood stained. He rounded the stairs upward and was immediately greeted with moonlight hitting his face. What the ********? They didn’t have window—oh. Mattie looked at the rubble that was once a standing wall in mild irritation.

And then he saw himself. No, not a reflection. A carbon copy of himself, with really strange clothes on, and sunglasses. Mattie just blinked. What the ******** was that? A boggart, maybe? He knew some of the lackeys had a decent fear of him. But judging by the round of corpses on the ground and how happily he, the other Mattie, was talking to some hitman, it was something else. Not wasting any time, Mattie strode up to it and grabbed it by the throat. And it shifted. What the—

“Oh hey Mattie~! Long time no see~!” Piper’s sickly face peered at him from the bone-breaking grip. Mattie just blinked. “Hope you don’t mind the visit!”

Well, Piper explained all the bloody casualties, but not the explosions. To the best of Mattie’s knowledge, Piper was magic; she couldn’t use it. Tossing Piper back to whatever she was doing, Mattie followed the sound of the explosions and ruckus, casually knocking out a few of the attackers in the process with a ‘stupify’. He’d interrogate them later.

---

Agatha gasped in a far more dramatic way than was necessary. Her hand flew up to her overly large chest that was squeezed into a shirt way too small for her. Her heavily made-up eyes narrowed into a glare, mentally sending every bad curse she could think of at that… that… Manwhore. “Oh, I remember you quite well, Marquis.”

She snickered at him, rapidly pulling a wand out from between her boobs. Usually something she used to seduce Mattie (not that it had worked yet, but it will eventually) and aimed right back at him. “You were the one that was always…” She looked for the right term, “…with Mattie.”

Suddenly an idea occurred to her. She sneered viciously. “You wouldn’t kill his fiancé, would you?”

She didn’t know how far the blonde vermin had gotten with Mattie, but she knew she’d gone farther. “He loves me. And he proves it. Oh, how I wish you knew how passionate he can get. Except… I don’t~! And on the night you finally left!” She let out a shrill giggle.

Mattie heard something he hadn’t heard in a long time; gunshots. Three, specifically. But that was all it took for him to run towards the sound, gripping his wand more in anxiety than fear. He was going to be looting some poor muggle of their gun if it was the last thing he did. Mattie rounded the corner to the main office, and had the opportunity to see the gun sling a pellet through his fiancé’s forehead. Cool.

Mattie stared at the gun for a while, not recognizing it’s model, but it wa definitely a low impact pistol-type. Like the one Marquis used to have. He looked slightly higher at the weilder and froze. He had his mouth open to ask what kind of gun it was, but the sudden chill that ran through him had reduced it to a stutter. There’s no way…

“You’re dead.” Mattie said, pale as he could get. “This isn’t possible. You’re dead.”

Mattie was just frozen stiff for a good few minutes or so, not paying (much) attention to the guns pointed at him. Bacio had taught him how to throw those guns to the other side of the room. Well, wands, but the trick worked pretty well on all light objects. But holy hell. Marquis was here. Alive. And… not taller at all. Mattie settled into a grim expression, the closest he got to smiling. He could feel the drained blood slowly creep back into his face.

“Eh?” He looked down at the bleeding out Agatha. Mattie shrugged it off. “Whatever.”

He just stayed quiet at Marquis’ question about where he had been. He probably wouldn’t have gotten himself into this huge load of s**t if he had known Marquis was alive. How exactly did one explain joining a new group of pseudo-death-eaters, with no other motive than that it was a free job position with good pay?

“I’ve got your gun.” Mattie blurted out, referring to the one he’d left at the Shrieking Shack. How lame could he get, honestly? ‘I’ve got your gun’? Might as well add a ‘nice face’ in there. Suave, Mattie. He looked horridly nervous, and it had nothing to do with being near death. His grip on his wand had tightened considerably. But, other than about the guns, there was one thing he wanted to know.

“Why are you here?”