It absolutely was not too soon to be shopping for a Halloween party. Many people would argue it was too late, the decorations should’ve been up for at least two weeks already. Elizabeth felt that those people had way too much time on their hands.

Halloween wasn’t for another two weeks and they were having a party at the mansion around then. All the faculty, staff, and X-Men had had a meeting to divvy up tasks in preparation. Some had to arrange the food, some had to come up with games and entertainment, others had to come up with the costume contest, and they had to do it all while juggling all their myriad tasks that came from working and/or living at a school for mutants.

Liz and Mirror had been assigned to the decoration squad. Which meant they also had to go out and buy the materials.

A corn snake slithered around her arm, comfy-cozy inside the sleeve of her Xavier Institute hoodie. It wasn’t very obvious unless you happened to notice a fold of cloth moving when her arm was otherwise still. The gray squirrel napping in her hood was invisible, covered up by her wavy mane of dirty blonde hair. The three bright red ladybugs crawling around her left ear were the most noticeable of her guests.

Liz gripped her basket tightly as she walked down the party supply section of a store. “You know, it feels like it’s been forever since we had a chance to catch up,” she said to Mirror. “Good grief, it feels like more than a year. So much has happened lately!”

"Yeah. Tell me about it" Maya smiled, walking along. Iris' powers had worn off since the morning, so she was not sporting horns and a tail anymore. Too bad, for once, a Halloween store would have been an excellent place to go out like that. But also, as most young parents, she cherished the time she got to spend in actual adult company. Especially Liz's, whom she had missed talking to at length, apart from the drive-by few words they exchanged during their busy daily work.

"It feels like we have a whole lot to talk about" she noted, casually inspecting a string of plastic bats. "Like... the fact that you are dating a literal Greek god?"

Alright, so maybe Maya had been waiting to say that for like, a week.

Elizabeth’s mouth twitched into a smile. Yeah, dating Hercules did seem like it was a popular topic around the mansion, and not just among the other staff. The guy had a tendency to make a big entrance and an even bigger impression everywhere he went.

“So about that,” she said, “I’m not super convinced that he actually is a god, but it’s tricky to really dive into that kind of conversation with him.” Any time she tried digging into the underpinnings of the things he spoke about, it always seemed like they were using completely different jargons, or at least jargons that meant completely different things to both of them.

“The only thing I know for sure is that he uses magic, but not like other magicians,” she shrugged and put some bundles of black and orange streamers in her cart. “Good grief, even that sounds crazy. Magic is real now!”

>>“So about that. I’m not super convinced that he actually is a god, but it’s tricky to really dive into that kind of conversation with him.”

"Don't I know it." Maya smirked. The admissions interview had been a trip and a half. But apparently, Liz did not get much more out of him either.

>>“The only thing I know for sure is that he uses magic, but not like other magicians. Good grief, even that sounds crazy. Magic is real now!”

"Yeah. It's f*** real" Maya sighed. "The kid in me wants to be super excited about it. But... turns out, most magicians are just bigot a**holes in a different costume." She glanced over at Liz, with an apologetic look. "Some excluded. I hope."

Liz chuckled as Maya already seemed to have picked up on the crux of who Hercules is. “I take it you’ve met him then?” she winked. She was one hundred percent confident that all the faculty and the X-Men knew of Hercules, if only because of his fight with Sam that time Hercules had tried to kidnap DocProf. She didn’t think most people had directly met the man though.

The blonde waved the brunette's apology away. “Oh no, I’m with you there,” she said. “That actually seems like the predominant theme with magicians.” She shrugged. “Granted, I’me only working with a small sample size so there’s a high margin of error, particularly for the anecdotal qualitative evidence, but still. There’s apparently some kind of cult running around! Even Hercules is wary of them! And I’ve seen him take on a room full of berserkers, giants, and armed warriors with just a chain and a smile!”

Liz did not feel the need to mention her own contributions to that event, or the fact that she was the reason they were there in the first place.

"Oh yeah I've met him. He came in to... talk about bringing a kid named William to the school. He's apparently the kid's guardian? Have you met him?" Maya poked at some fake spiderwebs, but decided Liz could probably do better with real spiders.

"Well, that cult kidnapped my wife and child and now Becca and Kalos are not mutants anymore" Maya frowned. It was still a sore point she needed to work through. "I am not done with them yet. You thin Hercules could help out if it comes to that...?" She shook her head. "Nope, still weird. You are dating the actual Hercules. Way to go, Liz."

Elizabeth stopped and stared sunnily at Maya. “Oh, he finally did that, huh? Good, Hercules had been talking about enrolling William for quite some time,” she said. She nodded confidently. “Will’s a good kid. Bright, empathetic, responsible, even if he does sometimes gamble on summoning figures and creatures from Greek myth into this day and age.” That hellhound could’ve turned out so horribly.

“Yes, Hercules is the boy’s guardian. The parents were in an accident, the same one that crippled him. Hercules is all he has right now. He’s not a mutant but I figured if anyone can understand gaining powers and having the world pulled out from under you, well, it’d be us.”

Liz winced and glanced away. “That’s right. Sorry, I forgot that part,” she said. She’d heard about Becca and Kalos and knew they been…converted?...but she didn’t know the details. She was mostly going on rumors.

“Hercules would be furious if he wasn’t invited,” Liz said. “In fact, he’s been searching for allies to aid him in his inevitable confrontation with them. Just a few months ago he started training another magician who’d been burned by the cult.” She didn’t know Rex’s full story, but that much she’d gleaned.

She couldn’t help but blush though. “Well thank you,” she said. “I figured online dating was a waste of time so why not scroll through a couple of ancient scrolls to find me a man?”

"Puns? Really?" Maya arched an amused eyebrow at Liz. She seemed... at ease, or at least handlig the whole magic-god-cult situation better than she was. Maya sighed, tossing some more decorations into the cart.

"You know, Becca's sister is in the cult." she frowned. "She showed up all nice and friendly, looking for lost family and whatnot. Then she turned around and... attacked her and Kalos." Maya was still beyond furious about that. "I shot her."

Liz shrugged. “You’re good with a bow and I don’t mock you for it, so I’d appreciate similar respect for my wea-pun of choice,” she said sternly, before devolving into a cheesy grin.

Elizabeth dropped the plastic sugar skull she was considering. “Who, what? Becca has a sister?!” She turned with such speed that a ladybug got catapulted off her cheek and the corn snake popped his head out of the sleeve of her hoodie. “I definitely didn’t hear that part!” Nor the part about the sister getting shot, obviously, but she was sure Maya had good reasons. You know, like defending her wife.

Liz just stared as the plastic skull rolled down the aisle. “That…that’s just…woah,” she said, trying to see all the angles. “That’s gonna be one heck of an awkward Thanksgiving, huh?”

>>“You’re good with a bow and I don’t mock you for it, so I’d appreciate similar respect for my wea-pun of choice,”

Maya groaned. Liz and puns. That was definitely a weapon.

The news about Becca's sister were... news, apparently. She had tried to keep it under wraps, but the Mansion was a horrible place for gossip.

>>“Who, what? Becca has a sister?! I definitely didn’t hear that part!...That…that’s just…woah. That’s gonna be one heck of an awkward Thanksgiving, huh?”

"Yeah I think we might skip that this year" Maya sighed. "Yes, Becca has a sister. Half. Sister. Who conveniently showed up at the same time as mystics, and turns out to be some head b*** in their cult. She lured Becca and Kalos in... and took their powers. Took the entire f*** X-gene, apparently." Maya cleared her throat. "Sam and I ran into her trying to stir up more sh*t. I put an arrow through her." She glanced up "She's alive. Sam's keeping her secured."

The snake retreated back into her sleeve as Elizabeth frowned. There was so much to take in there. The rebounding horror of the possibility of removing an X-Gene was already enough to provide nightmares. It would be like a lobotomy or amputation. And mutants had enough enemies and opposition as it was - not everyone would care if a mutant was no longer a mutant. They could see it as merely vulnerability.

The betrayal of a long-lost sister just added new tiers of awful.

The frown deepened. Dust mites and spiders in the corners of the store froze in perfect sync with her thoughts. All non-sapient animal life within two hundred feet did the same. “You said…Sam…is keeping her secure?” A woman who’d betrayed his friends and forcibly violated some of them and is also a ranking member of this cult that is trying to end mutants?

Liz knew some of his past. She’d also seen his actions in person. “When did you last see her?” she said slowly, real concern evident in her eyes.

"About a week ago." Maya noted the concern in Liz's eyes. She knew what she was thinking. She sighed, tossing some decorations at random into the basket. It wasn't like Liz was entirely wrong. Maya had her own doubts sometimes, which made her check in on Aoife, as much as she loathed seeing the woman. Every time, Aoife tried to get under her skin. Most of the time she succeeded. "I know what you're thinking. I'm not saying Sam doesn't want to... but he knows if it came to that, he would have to let me do it. That's a language he understands."

“Okay,” Liz said with a few rapid eye blinks. “Okay,” she repeated herself, for her own needs.

She wasn’t an X-Man, despite all of Sam’s intentions, and she wasn’t a law enforcement or judicial official. It wasn’t up to her to dispense with justice or call others to task for what they did and didn’t do, especially in matters like this.

The concern stayed in her eyes, but it shifted sources a bit. “Just…be careful, okay?” she said. “So none of you get hurt either.”

The snake started shifting around in Elizabeth’s sleeve and animal motion began to pick up in the surrounding area again. The blonde left her cart momentarily to retrieve the plastic skull.

“Speaking of cults,” Liz said as she caught sight of a green balloon with two bulbous black eyes painted on it, clearly trying to change the subject and get past the awkwardness she felt. “What’s this I hear about you being some kind of alien saint or whatever?”