So being a part of the Veil was not all just incanting and naked rituals under the moonlight (unfortunately). When the supremes had attacked the mansion, they had started a series of events that could have ended cataclysmically. But because of the members of the now named “Veil” they had instead changed the world – and therefore were now responsible for that part of it. Magic had seeped out from another plane, magic that changed the fabric reality – and that included people. Therefore it was only fair that they stepped up and did what they had to protect and help those who needed it.

Thanks to some divining rituals, the Veil caught wind that a new mystic was being exploited by a zealot revival church group that went by name “The Moon”. They were rather easy to find on the internet, cheapo website and all that looks like it came out of a 90s television show. The Moon were claiming to have a real-life miracle worker on their hands. However their claims were not completely altruistic as they were charging handsomely for this mystic to perform some real-life “miracles”.

But that wasn’t the worst. It rarely was with these groups. There had been rumors of all the -ists and radicalization attached to their name but nothing concrete. And if the Veil was making this person known to the mystics, then it must mean that they needed help.

Having had her own personal hellish experience with such an organization, Belladonna was the first to volunteer. Though, admittedly she wasn’t completely thrilled with the choice of partner.

Bella, having recently officially changed her name from Agnes, shook and jolted upon the rather dusty road. Behind the wheel of a rusted pick-up truck, it was all she could rent to traverse the road, she kept her eyes forward, hands on ten and two, and tried to look for any signs of the multi-colored tent with the neon moon posted up front. So far all she could see was tall grass, overgrown trees, and a whole lotta nothing.

Carefully Bella glanced to her side. Rex. The priest who was also a mystic had been assigned to join her. The two didn’t really talk, even when they were in the sanctum together. The first time they had met, Bella had just knocked out her aunt and renounced her and her blasted church forever. It was odd then that not long afterward she had to hold hands with this priest in a ritual that bled magic throughout the world. Talk about strange. But despite his kindness, Bella still found it hard to really converse with him. Maybe Becca and the others were hoping this little mission would also open them up?

Time would tell.

Dressed in her cut off denim shorts and a ladybug t-shirt that proclaimed the message “Don’t LadyBug Me!”, the darked haired, pixie cut mystic reached down to grab her cup of iced coffee. Bleh. Most of the ice had melted and watered down her coffee by now. She made a face at the taste but didn’t give it another thought as she replaced the cup in the holder.

Out of the corner of her eye she spied Rex, looked away, glanced again, and saw him briefly look her way. Why did this have to be so awkward? She tried to push past it and instead looked to the map he held (apparently phone signals were a joke out here).

”Ugh…we…getting any closer to getting there, padre?”

Rex was revolted. Utterly disgusted. This person who he was paired with and their sick, twisted depravities so blatantly on display. He didn't know Belladonna, just in passing. He'd recognize her off the street but he didn't think they'd exchanged more than five sentences. Perhaps if they had, Rex would've known about this abomination beside him in the truck. He could've brought the right tracks to show her the light, the true path, not this heresy she was speeding toward.

Try as he might, he couldn't hide how sick the sight made him. You could actually see part of his lip curl a millimeter in disgust. Horror filled his eyes as she engaged in the despicable act right in front of his eyes, without any sense of shame or decency.

She actually drank the iced coffee!

He noticed her glance and abruptly turned back toward the map, his own insulated thermos of coffee between his thighs. The coffee was hot and black, no non-sense, no frills. There was a second slot in the cupholder, but he didn't want his coffee anywhere near Belladonna's. He just knew it was waiting to contaminate his and he wasn't sure all the fire he could bear down on that iced coffee could cleanse the Earth of its foulness.

"About five minutes," Rex said in his typical gruff tone, staring at the map with his typical slight frown but otherwise expressionless face, barely blinking as they went over a bump in the pitted road, which he was now naming Good Intentions.

They were out in the middle of nowhere, which wasn't thrilling to Rex, who'd grown up in the big city and lived there his whole life. However, the last several months in working with the Veil had done a lot to desensitize him to things. Months of serving on extraction teams, helping new mystics out of hairy situations and providing aid where needed had taken him to many diverse places, utilizing every bit of his first responder training, volunteer experience, and faith to make it through, as well as judicious use of fire and prayers.

As a result, Rex didn't know many of the people in the Veil, other than people he'd gone on missions with. He didn't spend much time in the library unless he had a reason or needed to coordinate with people for logistics or intel. He wasn't much of one for magical research - the only book he truly needed was the Good Book. Apparently that was enough to earn him some kind of nickname. "I'm not a Father," Rex said, then adjusted, "Not that kind, at least." The one kind made him ineligible for the other. He also wasn't wearing a white collar on his red plaid work shirt tucked into heavy-duty jeans. Sunglasses and dirty boots completed the look. No, he was blue collar through and through.

"This your first time?" Rex said. He probably should've found out her experience in these kinds of missions before. Well, no time like the present.

Bella couldn’t help but laugh a little inward. When she and Rex had first got into the car, with their respective drinks, it was not hard to see the appalling look in the man’s eyes. At first she wondered if it was her outfit. She was definitely more revealing than she grew up wearing. The modesty that her parents forced into her mind, plus the horrific scars they gave her was more than enough to steer her away from anything like that. Now that she was above her family’s indoctrination and was apparently healed from her scars, she decided to throw caution to the wind.

From what she understood, Rex was a religious man. In the sanctum, the few times she had seen him there, she caught a few of his praises to the almighty. Nothing outwardly obnoxious like what she grew up with, or evangelical, but still it was hard to miss. That obviously put her one edge and, to be honest, gave her some prejudices about him. In this case, to her, the book was precisely what the cover promised.

All that is to say, if Rex had a problem with what she was wearing, he could just sit on a screw driver. Bella was done apologizing and hiding who she was.

And then she eventually realized that wasn’t the case. It didn’t take long to put together. She noted the looks first, but then realized they were only done whenever she took a sip from her drink. Mix that with the hot thermos that he clung onto for dear life and she realized the truth: he was disgusted with her choice of drink.

And it made her laugh.

Still, Bella found herself somewhat on edge around him, keeping their conversation to just facts and information. It may have come off as curt and rude but it was hard for her to look past anyone who actively took a part in such a religion that would warp her parents and aunt into such zealotry.

Suddenly his comment pulled her from his thoughts. Not a father? She blinked and winced inward. ”Sorry…” she said. ”...I assumed…”

Really Rex had done nothing to offend her other than praise God and disparage her choice in beverages. Was that really enough to pass such judgment? She really, really wanted to think so given the path of her life. But the whole reason she changed her name was to start again, wasn’t it?

Bella was then grateful for his next question. ”Maybe? Not quite sure,” she replied. There was a brief pause before she glanced to him out of the corner of her eye and smirked defeatedly. ”I am apparently much older than I look,” she explained. ”I was a victim of that de-aging epidemic that was running rampant a couple years ago. I was maybe…18 or 19 then? But turns out I had actually been closer to my 30s before I was deaged.” She shrugged. ”Professor Grey apparently knew me. I was apparently never an X-Man. But there’s a gray area there where apparently I dropped off the radar. Who knows, maybe I was actually a trained government assassin.”

Bella then turns, slowly, giving Rex a stern, scary look. The look only lasts a few moments before she grins and snorts.

”You?” she returns to looking ahead then, bouncing on this extremely bouncy road. ”Traveling preacher? Missionary, maybe?” There is a slight bite to these words as she says them. Totally wasn’t done on purpose.

"You're forgiven," Rex said simply. People tended to make a lot of assumptions about him. That didn't bother him. Much. He often didn't correct them unless it was something serious. In this case, Rex refused to even passively masquerade as a priest - that seemed sacrilegious to him.

Rex's frown deepened as Belladonna answered his questions. The furrows turned into trenches as he tried to sort out what she was saying. Rex was only vaguely aware of the development of several years back. A spontaneous fountain of youth, some had said. Living euthanasia, others had countered. It was a plague or something that if you contracted it, temporarily or permanently lost years of your life. You didn't get closer to death, in fact you normally gained extra years at the cost of losing all memories formed in those years.

The look she turned on him didn't phase him. He didn't even notice, not did he notice the grin and snort. He was otherwise mentally occupied. Without looking her way, he absently commented, "Eyes on the road. It's unsafe enough as it is." Then he followed up with, "I thought that aging thing only happened to mutants." He couldn't remember any normal people getting affected by it.

It was his turn to answer the question. Was that anger he detected? He continued to frown, suddenly aware that there were undercurrents to this situation he was unable to detect. "I'm a firefighter," he said, starting to fold the map back carefully along it's creases. "Since this magic stuff started, I've been on the streets helping where I can. This seemed like the next logical progression." It didn't occur to him to provide details on the types of help he provided people. Beyond community service for the run-down neighborhood around his church, there were also the infrequent team-ups with the likes of Detective Travis, Hercules, and Sam Johnson, stopping mad scientists, demon-callers, wannabe warlords, and renegade mutant gangs.

He opened his thermos and took a drought of the hot, black coffee. "Looks like we're about there," he said, nodding ahead toward the distance.