Magik's Tricks and Treats Chapter 3

Warning: The following story contains age regression and diapers.  If that sounds like a little bit of lovely to you, read on and get your treat! If not, proceed to the next house, which I hear is giving away toothbrushes and Mormon tracts.

EXTRA WARNING: This chapter gets a little mean—possibly even dark—so just be forewarned that some not nice stuff happens to the regressed.

Chapter 3

Consciousness dripped back into Illyana, slow and steady, like refilling the ocean with a Big Gulp cup.  She felt the damp chill of air engulfing her bare skin.  Running on instinct, she took control of her breathing, kept it nice and even.  She forced her body to remain still and lax.  If she could just play possum long enough to clear her head and draw on her magics, someone was going to be in for a very short, excessively painful taste of infernal vengeance.  

“For shame, child,” said the dry leave voice.  “Trying to pull the wool over your elder’s eyes.  I knew you was awake five minutes before you did.  Now quit the faking so we can get on with this.”  

Illyana, wrists restrained by chains and manacles dangling from the ceiling, opened her eyes toward the voice.

“Oh me, oh my,” said the woman standing behind a table covered with books, chalk, and a stone mortar.  She was tall and lean.  With short, well-kept white-blond hair.  And a mole under her right eye.  She smiled a bright, Crest white smile at her captive.  “Such eyes.  You’ve seen some ugly in your life.  Some real ugly.  None of this ‘my mommy didn’t hug me enough’ stuff.  I’m talking torment.  Am I right?”  

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Illyana growled.  

“To be sure,” the woman said easily.  She consulted one of the books, selected a chalk stick, and began scribbling inside an already drawn circle.  “Just maybe not the way you’re counting on.”  

“Let them go, Glenda,” said the woman from earlier, her voice still unsteady from head trauma.  She was bound to a metal chair with iron fetters and cuffs covered in wards that prevented her from accessing her magic.  “You’ve no right to do this.”  

“Oh, sister—foolish sister—I’ve all the right I could ever need.  The right of might.”  

The bound woman looked at Illyana, her eyes wet with tears.  “I’m so, so sorry, sweet child.  But I…I just can’t…”  

Illyana was beginning to get at least part of the picture.  The sister couldn’t help them.  Not after they were in the house.  Probably a compulsion.  Or a blood oath.  Some silly bargain probably struck lightly, no thoughts to insanely dire consequences—not from a beloved sister.  And Illyana realized that was why the woman had acted so strange.  She’d been trying to turn them away while unable to directly say, “Hey, dum-dums, maybe get away from my crazy, dried up hag of a sister!”  

And then another thought hit Illyana, a streak of fear, the edges of which were beginning to tinge into hate.  She looked around the room.  A small, dank cellar.  Stone walls.  And no children.  “What did you do with them?”  

Glenda didn’t look up from her work.  If she was working some kind of spell into the circle, she probably needed supreme concentration.  

“Hey!” Illyana barked.  “You wizened hag!  What did you do with my friends?  If you’ve hurt them, I swear to the depths of the fieriest hell you can imagine I will tear the eyes from your head and choke you with them.”  

“Such clucking,” Glenda said with a huff.  “Pretty insult though.  I’ll have to remember it.  But don’t you worry your head none.  Your friends are fine.”  At this Glenda looked up from her work.  “Well…no.  That’s likely a lie.  They’re a bit less than fine.  But they’re alive.  And they’ll keep on living.  At least for tonight.”  

“They’re just kids,” said Illyana.  “Let them go.  You can keep me.”  

Glenda, wearing an insulted expression, shook her head at Illyana.  “There you go fibbing.  We both know those girls are anything but ‘just’ or ‘kids’.  Or don’t you think I know a well twisted spell when I come across one.  De-aging spell.  So you and your little friends—your little mutant friends.”  Glenda paused, drank in the look of shock that spread across Illyana’s features.  “On, yes, chicken little, I know you and your gaggle’re all muties.  Which means, I plug ‘em in just right, give ‘em just the right…treatment…and I can plug into them.”  

“What did you do?” Illyana screamed.  
“She’s placed them in dream rooms,” said the sister.  “Nightmare rooms to be exact.  The better to funnel their negative emotional energy into herself.”  

“Well, shoot, Elphaba, don’t go stopping there,” said Glenda.  “Go on and tell her the best part.  The fun part.”  

Elphaba flinched as if someone had struck her.  “She…Glenda…she de-aged them further.”  

Illyana’s jaw dropped.  And immediately pressed closed into a thin, white line.  

“Babies made for better emotional stew,” said Glenda.  “That young, it’s pure emoting.  Whaa, I’m hungry.  Whaa, I’m wet.  Whaa, Mommy’s hitting me.  None of that pesky rationalization, or compartmentalization, or whatever-other-lizations you got.  Makes for nice clean eating.  The energy, I mean.”  Glenda laughed.  “I’d never really eat a baby.  I mean, who even does that?”
 
A deep breath rocked Illyana’s shoulders, and she went perfectly still.  The blast furnaces in her eyes dropped into a deep, solid freeze.  And the edges of her mouth curved upward.  Her voice just audible, with singsong traces of her old Russian accent dancing through the syllables, she said, “I’m going to get out of this.  And rescue my friends.”  She tilted her head, her widening smile nowhere near creasing her now frosted over eyes.  “But first, I’m going to take your soul.  In my hands.  Twist it.  And poison it.  With your deepest, darkest dread.  And then I’ll shove it right back in.  You will scream.  And claw.  And cry.  And beg.  Lost to perpetual agony.  Trapped in a life that.  Will.  Never.  End.”  


Glenda blinked at Illyana.  Then at Elphaba.  Then back at Illyana.  “Now that,” she said, pointing to the mutant sorceress, “is scary.”

“Let her go,” Elphaba begged again.  “She’s not bluffing.  Strike a bargain and release the mutants.  You can find your power source elsewhere.”  

“And wait until next All Hollows’ Eve to claim my bit of eternity?  I think not.”

“That you didn’t de-age her speaks to your fear, sister.  Release her before those fears become real.”  

“True enough, El.  I didn’t de-age her.  Didn’t want the fullness of her potential in front of her to tap into.  But I still got a need for her.”  Glenda dragged a dagger across her wrist.  Three round, ruby drops fell into the now steaming mortar, bits of her own witchly essence binding the spell, and when the smoke turned yellow she picked it up and walked around the table.  Toward Illyana.  “That’s why she’s riding the train the other direction.”  

Glenda dipped her hands into the mortar, and flicked the concoction into Illyana’s face three times.  

At first nothing happened.  Then it hit, with the force of an avalanche.  And everything hurt.  Her head throbbed.  Her knees ached.  Her back creaked and bowed.  Her skin writhed.  She felt her limbs elongate, not much.  Fractions of an inch.  Her bones squeaked like unoiled hinges.  Her flesh stretched, pulled taut at first.  Then, slowly, began to loosen.  Sag.  Even as her back bent more and more.  
 
She was aging.  Rapidly.  The old hag was pushing her beyond the height of her potential, to an age where she’d be nothing but dried up and feeble.  Illyana could feel the power surging deep within, her well of power—building, swelling…and beginning to tip into inexorable decline.  She felt so heavy.  So tired.  Her joints stiffened, acute aches lancing through them as she struggled to remain standing, to keep the strain of the manacles from wrecking her wrists.  

Through all the pain, Illyana fought.  She had survived the worst that the Lord of Limbo threw at her.  Days of torture that had taken years to complete.  She would not be broken by some sad little witch having a midlife crisis.  So she clawed inside.  Dug deep.  Greedily clinging to that inner well, even as it slipped past her.  Soaked herself in it.  Wrapped it around her.  Even as it streamed away into her past.  
 
Finally it was too much.  She cried out.  Not the passionate scream of hatred.  But a pained wail.  Her knees buckled.  The manacles, now supporting the entirety of her body weight, cut into her wrists, threatening to dislocate either wrist or shoulder, and maybe both.  Her spine curved down.  Her shoulders collapsed in.  Sagged.  With tears in her eyes, she rasped, “S-stop…please…n-no more…”

“Oh, that’s about all we’ll need,” said Glenda.  Holding Illyana’s weight up, she unbound the now ancient woman’s wrists, and helped her, slowly, to a chair across from Elphaba.  No shackles.  No need for them.  Illyana was too old, too decrepit, to hold her head up, let alone lift her hands.  Just an adult-sized diaper that Glenda lowered her onto and taped into place.  

When she was finished, Glenda threw out her hands and said, in a tone typically reserved for hokey preachers, “Behold!  My sacrifice.  My gift to Tithonus.  Along with your eternally infantile friends.  In exchange for my eternal prime.  Now let’s get to summoning us an age demon.”

The ritual was a difficult one, even for a top flight witch, so Glenda was depending on channeling the torment of her other victims into her own strength in order to both summon and hold the demon Tithonus until the bargain could be struck.  Until then, the mutants-made-babies were meant so suffer.  And suffer they did.  



Megan Gwynn didn’t remember where she was.  Or how she got there.  All she knew was something was wrong.  She crawled out from beneath her blankie, over to the edge of her crib.  Using chubby hands, she worked her way to standing, but the bars were still well over her head.  This was wrong.  Somehow.  She felt bad.  Icky.  She shifted her legs back and forth, but the feeling wouldn’t go away, and she didn’t know how to make it go away.  Frustrated, she slapped the bars with her hands, calling, “Ungh!  Uuunnnngh!”  

This continued until two women entered the room.  One with long dark hair.  The other with long blond hair.  It only took a second for Megan to place them as her half-sisters, Martinique and Regan Wyngarde, the daughters of Jason Wyngarde.  They weren’t exactly the most creative lot.  Jason had long been known to the world as Mastermind.  His daughters followed in his footsteps, both being known as Lady Mastermind before Martinique got the genius idea to change her name to Mastermind II.  

“Looks like our little embarrassment’s awake,” said Regan, the blond.  

“Surely is,” said Martinique.  “And I’ll just bet the little sprat couldn’t keep her nappy dry.”  

“Well, what about it, bug?” asked Regan, using her favorite name for the black-eyed tot.  “You make a mess of your nappy again?”  

“N-no,” Megan said.  

Regan reached for her, and Megan toddled backward, not wanting the woman to touch her, but the move was too complicated for a barely tot like Megan.  Her feet got tangled, and she toppled over onto her hiney.  The fall squished the surprise—at least to her—of a thoroughly soaked nappy up against her skin.  It was cold and squidgy.  The feeling took a moment to process, but when Megan did, she burst into tears.  

“Oh, would you listen to the brat,” said Martinique.  

“One little soaked nappy and she’s screaming bloody murder,” said Regan.  

“No wonder Daddy thinks she’s such a failure.”  

“It’s only because she is.”  

There was nothing Megan wanted less than Daddy’s approval.  He was a big, smelly meanie.  He called her such terrible names.  And tried to force her to do things she knew weren’t nice.  But still…  No one else would love her.  She knew this.  Her daddy was a dumb, stupid jerk.  Her sisters were dumb, stupid jerks.  What else could Megan be but a big, stupid, meanie faced jerk?  So the only ones who would care for her, look after her, were the family she wanted no part of.  And whom seemingly wanted no part of her.  

Regan reached into the crib and pushed Megan onto her back before grabbing a handful of Megan’s loaded nappy.  “Wanna have a little cry over this, huh?  You wet, worthless baby.”  She squished the nappy against Megan, squeezing it until all the wet dribbled back out from the padding and back onto Megan, sending the girl into a renewed fit of hysterics.  

“You know how to make this stop, you little failure,” said Martinique.  

The raven haired woman held up a stuffed teddy—Megan’s Mr. Fuzzyface—and Regan stopped squeezing.  

“No!” Megan whined, holding her hands out to her bear.  “Give me Mr. Fuzzyface!  Give him me!”  

Martinique sneered, and with one easy movement, ripped the bear’s head clean off.  

“Nooooo-hooo-hoooo!” Megan howled in agony.  

Her sister tossed both carcass and head into the crib, stuffing pouring out both ends.  Megan hugged her downed friend to a chest heaving spasmodically with sobs.  She looked up, prepared to call Martinique something really vile, like doo-doo head, but stopped at the sight of Regan sarcastically cradling Megan’s stuffed bunny.  

“Ms. Bun-buns!”  Megan dropped her torn friend and reached up desperate hands.  “No!  Please!  Don’t hurt Ms. Bun-buns!”  

“Oh, you sweet, stupid, bug-eyed freak,” Regan cooed.  “I’m not going to do a thing to your silly rabbit.”  The tall blond reached over and sat the bunny beside Megan.  “You are.”  

“What?” Megan squealed.  “Nuh-uh!  I no hurt Ms. Bun-buns!  She my friend.  And I love her.  Not like you!”  

Regan smirked at the intended insult, confusing Megan, until, “We don’t want the love of a pathetic little mistake like you.  We want your obedience.  Nothing more.”  

“So either you do what we tell you,” said Martinique.  

“Everything that we tell you.”  

“Starting with beheading that ridiculous bunny.”  

“Or we’re going to spank you.”

“Over and over.”

“In your wee wet nappy.”  

“Until you do.”  



The room was completely dark.  No nightlight glowing in the corner.  No slits of illumination peeking around the cracks of the door.  No windows inviting the silvery gaze of the moon to have a look around.  Just black.  Inky, blanketing black.

The room was completely quiet.  No murmur of the staff hurrying about their jobs outside.  No background hum of an air conditioner cycling on and off.  No creaking floorboards or groaning hinges.  Just silence.  Bleak, suffocating silence.  

For all Laura Kinney knew the world could have gone away.  Nothing outside her door but a noiseless, lightless abyss.  Her caretakers—or rather the scientists who poked, and prodded, and pried—sucked into the void.  Never again to experiment on her.  Never again to punish her failures.  Or minimize her successes.  Just gone.  

But if they were gone…that meant she was alone.  Abandoned.  Small, and weak, and helpless.  While there would be no one to upbraid her for her messy diapers, there would also be no one to change them.  While there would be no one holding her ba-ba just out of her reach for hours at a time, there would also be no one to finally feed her.  And she wasn’t smart enough or capable enough to change her own diapers, or fix her own bottles, so what could she do?  Just waste away?  No one would know she was here.  Struggling to survive.  And when she finally did waste away?  No one would care.  

Rolling onto her tummy, she stared at the door, willed and wished for someone—anyone—to come through, to make a sound—drop a clipboard, sneeze, swear at some unwanted result, it didn’t matter.  She just needed reassurance.  

Time tiptoed by, and no sound came.  Her bottom lip began to tremble, and the makings of a whimper burbled in her throat.  She stuffed her thumb in her mouth to muffle it.  Sobs and sniffles clawed at the back of her nose, and she buried her face in the cold depths of the mesh crib liner.  She mustn’t cry.  They told her so.  They told her no noises.  Or else.  And even though fears of abandonment coursed through her veins like a spider’s venom, she feared what They would do to her if she disobeyed them more.
 
But she couldn’t help it.  A little wail half-born, barely even a peep, leaked out around her thumb.

The door flung open, the knob impacting the adjacent wall like a gunshot.  So sharp and sudden the girl began wetting herself.  

A tall woman with dark skin and darker hair stood in the doorway.  The girl’s handler.  The girl’s trainer.  Kimura.  And she was not happy.  The girl could feel the heat of Kimura’s glare even without the words.  And when the words did come…the girl finished wetting herself.  

“What were you told, X-23?”

“Laura,” the baby insisted.  

Kimura crossed the room and wordlessly backhanded the girl across the face.  When the girl opened her mouth to wail, Kimura grabbed her cheeks in one hand and squeezed.  “Cry!  Go on, X-23.  Cry your pathetic little eyes out.  Cry.  And show us all how weak and worthless you really are.  Cry!  And give me an excuse to beat the tears right out of you.”

X-23 shook her head as best she could to show she wasn’t going to cry.  That she was going to be strong, like they’d trained her to be.  

“You want an award, X-23?  Huh?” Kimura gave the girl’s head a shake.  “You think we should praise you for not being a crybaby, X-23?”  

X-23 again shook her head.

Kimura squeezed the girl’s face tighter and repeated, “X-23.  That’s what you are.  X-23.  Say it.”  

“Nnnn!”  

“X-23!”

“Nnnnnn!  Lrrrrrraaaaah!”

Kimura struck her again.  “Tools don’t get names!  People get names.  But you?  You’re not a person.  You’re not a daughter.  Or a sister.  Or even an orphan.  You’re a mistake.  A foolish biologist’s sad miscalculation.  You only exist for us.  To use.  You’re a screwdriver.  A bottle opener.  A shoehorn.  Nothing more than a thing.”  Kimura leaned down into the crib, her face inches from the girl’s and growled, “Say it.  X-23.  Say you’re a thing.  Say.  You’re.  X.  23.”  




The lid to the crib shut above Jean Grey’s head with a bang, the metal locks clicking in place with a sound of finality.  The tiny red haired girl pressed shaking hands against the top, but it didn’t budge.  She tried again.  And again.  Finally, frustration hitting a climax, she threw herself to the crib’s mattress and raged.  She screamed.  And kicked.  And wailed.
 
“Jean, you must understand.  This is for your own good.”  

Green eyes glistening, freckled face red in frustration, Jean looked up at Professor Charles Xavier and screamed, “No!  No good!  No, no good!”

“Yes, Jean,” Xavier said slowly, as if that would somehow drive the truth of it all through Jean’s infantile skull, “it is for your own good.”  

“And for everyone else’s,” added Scott Summers.  

Jean peeked up at Scott, the sting of betrayal putting an extra shimmer to her raw eyes.  She wasn’t sure why.  She was much too young for Scott to mean much to her.  He certainly couldn’t have been her lover…but yet there was something there.  A funny tickle in her tummy every time she looked at him.  “Scott…”  

“You’re too dangerous, Jean,” said Scott.  “You’re a danger.  To yourself.  To everyone else.”  

“But Scott…”  The words came unbidden, from somewhere a baby like Jean couldn’t possibly understand.  “…I-I love you.  An-an-and you love me!”  

“No, Jean, I…I’m sorry.  I don’t”  

“Yes!”  

“Darling, how could he?” asked Emma Frost, looking almost bored as she studied the back of her freshly Frenched nails.  “You’re nothing more than destruction swaddled up in a marginally adorable package.”  

“Emma,” said Scott.  

“What?”  Emma flipped her golden hair and bore her icy blue eyes right into Jean’s head.  “Did I say anything untrue?”  She shrugged.  “Well.  Perhaps I was over-generous with ‘marginally adorable’.  But no one likes to call a baby ugly.  Even if it is destined to put an end to all existence.”  

“No!”  Jean slapped the crib’s liner.  And then, to make sure her point was clear, she hit it again.  “No!  I no destructor!  I good girl!  I wanna be good girl”

“Look, it’s not that I don’t like you.”  Jean pouted up at the blond, and Emma nodded.  “Yes, yes.  Fine.  I don’t like you.  I don’t like you at all.  You’re selfish.  And loud.  And you go through enough nappies a day to supply my Massachusetts Nursery for the Gifted for a month.”

“Emma,” said Scott.  

She brushed Scott’s protest off like a loose hair from her ivory blouse.  “Again, you tiresome bore.  Nothing untrue.  But it’s more than that.  You simply cannot change what you will become, Jean.  What you are.”  

“No!”  Jean threw herself onto her back, kicking and slapping wildly as the tears began to flow.  “No!  No, no, no!  Not what I am!  It not!”  

“I’m afraid it is, Jean,” said Scott.  

“He’s right,” Xavier said.  “It’s your destiny.  Fire and death is all you have to look forward to.  It’s all you have to offer.”

Words devolved into wails, bottomless emotions expressed through volume, and volume alone.  Jean pushed at the mattress.  Flipped from tummy to back to tummy, flailing impotent hands and feet all the while.  And when nothing seemed to work, when her frustrations exceeded her ability to express them, she simply pressed her back into the mattress, arms and legs rigid, and screamed at the top of her tiny lungs.  

“Jean…” said Scott.  

Emma, having reached the end of both her patience and her good graces, walked toward the nursery door.  “Oh, do let’s leave.  While I can appreciate a good tantrum, especially from Jean, this one’s becoming a bit…sad, really.”  

“She’s right, Scott,” said Xavier.  “It’s best if we leave her.  It’s best she gets used to her new life.  Alone.”  

“Scott…” Jean choked around her sobs.  “Scott…  Please…  No leave…  No…”  

She didn’t finish, because Scott, without turning to face her, without even pausing to acknowledge her pleas, walked out the door.  Xavier wasn’t far behind.  

Of all people in the world, it was Emma who paused, her face so fiercely placid it belied her sympathies.  “I do not relish this, Jean.  You deserve better.  Unfortunately…”  A frown creased those carefully manicured features.  “Stay strong, Jean.  For what little time you can.”  

Emma eased the door shut behind her.

Alone, Jean curled up in the crib’s far corner and sobbed in and out of consciousness.

Time, to her infantile mind, held little meaning, so whether the ringing silence blanketed her for hours, or days, or minutes, she couldn’t tell.  She could only mark its passing through innumerable tears, two wettings, and three full blown—and unanswered—tantrums. She was in the decline of Tantrum No. 3, still weakly slapping the mattress with an open hand, when a familiar face peeked through the door—literally…as in without opening it first.  The tantrum—sobs, smacks, and all—came to a complete stop as Jean gawked up at the disembodied head suspended on the door like the latest addition to General Zaroff’s collection.  

“Hey, squirts!” said the smiling head of Kitty Pryde.  “You’re being awfully noisy in here.”  

“Kitty!”  Jean, going from hopeless to happy in the twinkle of a tear-soaked eye, rolled over onto her tummy and pushed herself up.  “You come!”  

“Well, yeah.”  

“But the others…they say…”

“Yeah.  I know what they said.  And I’m not happy with them.”  Kitty phased the rest of the way through the door with a huff.  “Okay.  I’m never happy with Emma.  And Scott’s kind of a di—uh, dork.  And Professor X is a jerk.  But I’m less happy with them than usual.”  

Jean crawled to the near side of the crib, her hands eagerly grasping the bars.  “But you come see me!”  

“Thought we just established that, Jee-jee,” Kitty said, sticking out her tongue.  “Besides, I could smell your butt rot from outside.”
 
“Nuh-uh!”  

“Would Big Sis lie to you?” Kitty asked, squatting beside the crib.  

“Big Sissy said moon was cheese,” said Jean, crossing her arms.  

“Well who knew it was actually a big, gray rock?”  

“You did,” said Jean.  “And you say it cheese!  And when I tell Emma moon cheese, she laugh at me!  She call me silly baby.” Kitty finished with a pout.  

“Yeah.  Fair point.  But…”  Kitty stood up and began phasing the locks open.  “…we could either sit here and debate how wrong I was…or wasn’t.  Moon could still totally be made of cheese.  Maybe what everyone else thinks is a rock is just really hard, shiny cheese.  Or we could get you changed.  Which is what I’d rather do.  Because you are ‘tinky!”  Kitty waved a hand in front of her nose, as if to displace Jean’s odor.  “Teeny ‘tinky Jeanie!”  

“Nuh-uh!” Jean countered.  ”You ‘tinky one!”  

“No, you!”  Kitty threw the lid back.  

“No, you!”  

Kitty reached in.  Jean reached up and grasped her Big Sissy’s hands, glad for the affection that had been withheld from her for only scant hours.

No sooner had Jean grasped Big Sissy’s hands than they burst into flames.  Kitty screamed, staggered backward, arms waving.  And the flames kept climbing.  Kitty fell to the floor, the desperation of her cries driving Jean into hysterics.  And as Jean watched, her wails intermingling with Kitty’s, the fire swept up Kitty’s elbows.  Over her shoulders.  Across her chest.  Until Big Sissy was engulfed in flames.  She rolled back and forth, thrashing feet kicking over the changing table, scattering and scorching Jean’s toys.  And she screamed her lungs raw.  She screamed until blood vessels burst.  Until her lips cracked.  Until the stench of burned hair and flesh choking her cries in the back of her throat.    


And Jean watched, heart and mind numb, as her teacher.  Her role model.  Her best friend in any time period.  Burned to ash.  At the merest touch of her hand.    



Kitty’s high chair sat between Emma Frost and Logan.  Right where she wanted to be.  Emma and Logan were important X-Men, both leaders, warriors, and champions.  And if Kitty was between them, it meant she belonged.  She was one of The Team.  

She looked up at the gruff, hairy man with the 1800s side-whiskers, grinned, and waved.  

Logan frowned.  And grunted.  “Pay attention, pumpkin.  We ain’t got time to repeat this.”

From the head of the table Scott Summers cleared his throat and waited for Kitty to look at him before frowning his disapproval at her.  When Kitty hunched in on herself in shame, he continued the mission brief.  “We don’t know when the Brotherhood will attack the mayor’s—”

“Ooh!  Ooh, ooh, ooh!  Scott, ooh!”  Kitty bounced up and down, her bare knees clacking against the highchair’s tray, her bare tummy jiggling, her bare hand waving wildly.  “I know!  Kitty know!”  And when she had everyone’s attention, she cleared her throat just like she’d seen Scott do before, and said, matter-of-a-factly, “Brotherhood bad.  They bad, bad baddies.  And we must stop them.”  

“Yes, Kitty,” said Scott, visibly struggling to keep his temper in check, “the Brotherhood are bad.”  He took a breath to reset himself.  “My guess, they’ll hit the press conference tomorrow.  It’ll be public.  Visible.  Open.  The perfect time and place for them to send a message to the city.  So we’ll have to figure out how to stop them before—”

“Oh!  Oh, Scott, oh!  I know!  I know, I know, I know!”  

Scott pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Yes, Kitty?”  

Kitty straightened herself up in her seat, folding her hands on the tray like she’d seen Emma do before, and said, “We give them spankies.  When I bad, I get spankies.  And that make me be good.  So we give them spankies, and they be good.”
 
“Kitty this isn’t the time or the place,” said Scott.  

“Oh, I don’t know, darling,” said Emma, not hiding her smirk, “I believe Ms. Pryde could be on to something.”

At being praised by Emma, Kitty smiled and nodded up at the glorious woman.  

“Emma, you’re not helping,” said Scott.  

“Does it seem like I’m trying to?” asked Emma.  She crossed her legs and leaned back in her chair.  “Because, I assure you, I’m not.”  

Eager to grab more of Emma’s praise, Kitty continued.  “And if spankies no work, we give them timeout.  And feed them only strained peas.  Because they icky.  And Brotherhood icky.  So icky Brotherhood eat icky peas!”  

From across the table, Jubilee, who’d had enough, asked what several others were wondering: “What’s she even doing in here, Scott?  She’s just a baby.  A mouthy, clueless baby.”  

Kitty slapped her tray—just like she’d seen Logan do—and fired back, “No, Jub’lee!  Kitty no baby!  I big girl.  I been X-Man longer than you!”
“How could you possibly have been here longer than me?” Jubilee asked.  “You’re still in a diaper!  A used one by the smell of things!”

This stumped Kitty.  Her mouth fell open, and she looked between the rest of her teammates before settling on an irrefutable defense of, “Nuh-uh!  My diaper clean!  Maybe you diaper poo-pooed!  You poo-poo diaper pants!”

“Kitty,” said Ororo Monroe, “that is enough.”  

“But I no do nothing!” Kitty whined.  “Jubilee being smelly-face, meanie-butt!”  

“Hey!” Logan growled.  “Watch the language, kid.  Y’ain’t old enough to have that kinda mouth on you.”  

“Nnnnn!” Kitty whined.  And when Logan frowned at her, she slapped the tray with both hands—which was mostly just her own thing—with a loud, “Uuuunnnnnnnghhhhh!  You all mean!  I part of team.  I X-Man.  And you treat me like baby!  But you no can treat me like baby!”
 
“Aww!” Remy LeBeau cooed from his seat beside Jubilee.  “I think someone need a lil nap time, huh?”

“No!  No nap.  Me stay awake.  And make plan.  And spankie Brotherhood.  You take nap!”  

“Emma, do something about her,” said Scott…and immediately regretted it.  

A perfectly tweezed eyebrow lifted.  Blue tinged lips pressed into a line as thin—and dangerous—as any Schick razor.  “Do beg your pardon?  Am I some hired nanny?  Or perhaps my possession of ovaries makes me uniquely qualified to handle all infantile situations?”  

“N-no,” Scott said, clearing his throat for a very different reason.  “Sorry.  C…could you do something about Kitty?  If you don’t mind…”  

“Much better,” said Emma.  She scooped the tike up out of the highchair, and got Kitty situated on her lap before unbuttoning her own blouse and popping the flap of her bra.  As Emma guided Kitty’s lips to din-din, the baby fought back, squirming and whining, occasionally slapping Emma’s breast.  “Come, come, Ms. Pryde.  Do let’s drink up.”

When Kitty’s lips finally made contact, she immediately latched on, suckling deeply and quite noisily.  

“She’s always so fussy around dinner time,” said Emma, stroking Kitty’s hair.  “Such an ill bred little baby.  But I must admit, she’d unconscionably cute.”

Kitty bit down on Emma’s nipple before pulling away to complain, “Me no baby!  And me no cute!  Me X-Man!  Big girl X-Man!”  

“Kitty!” Logan snarled.  

“Emma!” Scott said, placing a hand on her shoulder.  “Are you ok?”  

“I’m fine,” Emma said with a pained smile.  “Usually I enjoy a bit of good biting…”  She examined her nipple, and upon finding it not excessively damaged, buttoned her bra and blouse back up.  “…but I suppose I cannot let this pass.  Spoil the rod, and all that.”  

With no ado—and only the barest of attention paid to Kitty’s squirmy protests—Emma lay the baby across her lap.  She untaped Kitty’s diaper and pulled it back to reveal Kitty’s pasty little buns, then because she was not going to bet a stain on her $300 slacks against Kitty’s ability—inability—to hold it, Emma arranged the little tot so that the thickest part of her diaper was right beneath the danger zone.

The sound of Emma’s hand smacking Kitty’s hiney made even the adults wince, and prompted Kitty to howl like a wounded animal.  As the hand raised, Kitty kicked and squalled.

“No!  No, Emma!  You no spankie, Kitty!  N—ugh!”  The hand fell again and Kitty squealed.  “Nnnnn!  Stop spankie!  I big girl!  I X-M—Aaaagh!”  Again.  “You stop!  You no—uuuuuhhhh!”  And again.  

“The more you insist on these feeble protests, the warmer I’m going to toast your adorable little buns,” said Emma.  “Am I understood?”  

Kitty bit down on her lips and nodded meekly.  Which only earned her another helping of Auntie Emma’s hand.  

“I believe I asked you a question,” said Emma, punctuating her statement with another round.  “And I would very much like an answer.”  

“Y-ye-yes, ma’am,” Kitty stuttered, hiccupping between sobs.  “Y-y-yes…M-m-ms…F-frost…”  

“Very good,” said Emma.  And she continued with the spanking.  

Kitty limited her responses to wordless wails, even her flailing hands and feet went limp.  And she had no idea that halfway through the last flurry she’d sprung a leak.  

She did, however, notice it when Emma pulled her diaper back in place.  It squished against her sensitive skin, especially her blazing bottom, and Kitty wailed anew.  “No!  Ms. Frost, no!  It icky!  It icky, icky, icky!”  

“What are you on about?” Emma asked.  

And when she sat Kitty on the desk, the press of sodden liner sent Kitty’s tantrum into orbit.  She pitched onto her back, flapping her fists and feet as she squealed bloody-minded murder.  

“So I guess it’s not my diaper that’s dirty,” Jubilee said.  

Remy leaned close and said, “I could check for you, chere.  You know, just to make sure.”  

“Oh, behave,” Jubilee said, smacking his shoulder.  

“Enough,” said Ororo.  “We have a mission to brief for.”  

“And I don’t think this is any place for the munchkin,” said Logan, which only caused Kitty’s cries to grow.  

“Yeah,” agreed Scott.  “She’s not an X-Man.”  

“Noooo!” Kitty whined.  “Nooo, Scoooottt, nooooo!  I X-ma-hah-hah-n!”  

“She’s nowhere near ready,” Scott continued, “but now that I think about it, I know the perfect place for her.”