Acknowledgments: The first set of thanks goes to the IRC crew in #subcafe, who, upon my leaving earlier in November, told me to keep on writing, which is where this story found its start, a battered black notebook. The second set of thanks belongs to Spade, who was going to type this up had I not gotten ‘Net and comp access back, and also told me not to stop writing, and to keep my notebook with me at all times. The third round is for Phrykyh, who volunteered to beta this, and did an outstanding job despite having illegible handwriting. Thanks, folks. This Bud's for you.
 

Now, on with the show!
 
 

Questing
X-Men/Mage: The Ascension
 

Chapter Three
 

"You know, you two really surprise me."

Ian and Alexander glanced over at Margaret, who took another sip of her Coke before continuing. "I mean, really. I've known you two for years, since we were all thirteen years old back in middle school. Eleven years, now. Eleven years together. I've seen you two grow up from immature teenagers to immature college students to, well, you guys now." 

Ian and Alexander exchanged a quick glance. "I enjoy being around you two as much as possible; you're funny, smart, witty, rather charming when you want to be... I've seen you two grow up to be respectable, sensible, intelligent, almost model citizens.

"But just as I start to realize and really believe all of this, what do you do?" she shouted, rising to her feet in a fury. "You drag me into Madison Square Garden to watch the World Wrestling Federation's Monday Night Raw so we can find five people in a sea of 20,000, five people we can only hope to find, since it's all based on a middle-aged crackpot's vision that only lasted for forty-five seconds!"

Ian looked shocked. "But we got these front-row seats for you and everything..."

Margaret stared straight into Ian's eyes without flinching as Ian's shocked look slowly disintegrated into a horrible mockery of sincerity. He started grinning ear to ear despite himself. She kept her face solid until he broke away from her gaze. "I don't care that the tickets are front-row! I don't care to know how you even got the tickets, seeing as we showed up right before the first match! And I especially don't care that the main event is, as you've undoubtedly told me a minimum of eighteen times, a tag-team match between Chris Jericho and the Rock versus Triple-H and Chris Benoit! We're not here to watch wrestling!"

Ian glanced at his ticket. "Funny, that's what this says..."

Margaret glared at him a moment longer, and then shifted her incensed gaze to Alexander. "Do something about him," she ordered.

Alexander glanced over at Ian, who was looking at his ticket upside down with a puzzled look on his face. Turning back to Margaret, he shrugged. "I've been trying to do something about him for eleven years now. I don't think there's anything we can do about him."

Margaret shook her head. "Whatever. Your match is starting," she said, pointing to the ring as she plopped down in her seat.

Alexander glanced at the ring and raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Ian, Ian," he said, waving over where the quirky mage was still looking at his ticket in a stupor. "Main event's starting."

They sat down on either side of Margaret as the drama started to unfold in the ring. Ian grinned ear to ear as they watched. Alexander edged around in his seat, a smile spread across his angular face. Margaret subtly hid her eyes in her hand, shaking her head sadly.

Alexander leaned down next to Margaret's head, close enough that he could be heard over the commotion of the fans around them. "You're not having any fun at all, are you?"

She shot a look at him that could have made a meteor turn right around and fly back into space. "I'm having a blast. I mean, I'm watching four barely dressed, muscular, sweaty men fight each other in a roped-off square, wrapping their arms around each other and falling onto the ground together. Why shouldn't I be having fun?" She plopped her face back down into her palm.

Alexander thought that over for a second. "Wait... why AREN'T you having fun?"

Margaret sat back up. "Because it's idiotic, that's why! Who actually enjoys this mindless drivel?"

Ian leapt from his seat with the rest of the crowd as a collective groan and shout of dismay filled the arena. Alexander watched him lean over the guardrail, Ian screaming and swearing, and looked back at Margaret. "He does," he shrugged.

"Man, what a bunch of crap," Ian mumbled, sitting back down. "Stephanie distracted the ref, and Benoit clocked Jericho with the ring bell when he was trying to do the Lionsault on Triple-H. Triple-H Pedigreed him, and even though the Rock broke up the count, it's still all but over. One more Pedigree or a Crossface and that'll be it."

Margaret calmly rested her chin in her palm, leaned her elbow against the rail, smiled sweetly at Alexander, and said, "Make that make sense."

Alexander sighed. "Okay. Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley jumped up on the ring apron to distract the ref so her husband, Triple-H, wouldn't lose. It's underhanded and sneaky, but it's what she's best at.

"See the guy laying in the middle of the ring looking pretty dazed? The blond-haired pretty boy? That's "Y2J" Chris Jericho. The fans love him. He does this little backflip off the ring ropes as one of his signature moves. He runs up, jumps onto the middle rope, and flips off to land on the guy lying on the mat. The guy outside the ring, the Canadian Crippler Chris Benoit, the guy who always looks like he's trying to pass a stone, he apparently smacked him in the head with the ring bell and knocked him cold."

"Yeah. Then the guy standing up in the ring, the pissed-off guy with the pansy beard, Triple-H, he picked him up and Pedigreed him," Ian interjected. "The Pedigree is when you stick his head in between your legs so his ass is sticking up in the air away from you, hook his arms above his back, and jump back onto your knees, driving his face into the mat. Hell of a move. He did that to Jericho."

Alexander nodded. "Then the last guy, the guy outside the ring with the weird sideburns and the permanently raised eyebrow, that's the Rock. The People's Champ. Everyone loves him."

"Everyone except Ian," Ian muttered.

"Everyone except Ian," Alexander agreed. "Ian thinks the Rock talks about monkeys a bit too much for anyone's good.

Margaret arched an eyebrow, but kept her mouth shut.

"Anyway," Ian continued, "the Rock ran in and kicked Triple-H in the back of the head to break up the three-count, so the match goes on. But Jericho, thanks to those moves, has lost all his momentum, and is in some deep poop. We might be seeing the match end soon."

Margaret, who had been nodding politely through the entire speech, nodded a final, emphatic time, and then sat back up. "And you like this why?"

Alexander grinned widely. "Because it's good, quality entertainment, and it's fun watching Ian try to molest the safety rail screaming 'foul' at the referee."

Jericho pulled himself towards the Rock's corner, dragging himself along on his hands and legs. Triple-H, a bit bewildered and out of breath, supported himself on the ring ropes, threw back his hair, and looked to see what Jericho was trying to do.

"Okay, what sets apart our suspects from everyone else here? What's the easiest way to figure out which ones they are?" Alexander asked, looking at Margaret and Ian.

Triple-H dove across the ring quickly and drove his forearm into the back of Jericho's head, cutting him off just before he could make a tag to the Rock. The crowd groaned when the tag was averted, and the Rock leaned forward against the ropes, annoyed.

"There was the short hairy guy, remember? And the guy with the red sunglasses. That should be enough, right?" Ian said, not paying a lot of attention to the other two.

Triple-H roughly hauled Jericho to his feet and whipped him off the ropes, but clumsily missed a clothesline as Y2J slipped underneath the swung arm, rebounded off the other set of ropes, and caught the leader of DeGeneration-X smack on the forehead with a spinning wheel kick. The crowd leapt to their feet, cheering the exhausted Jericho as he tried to tag the Rock as the People's Champ strained to reach across the ring to him.

"What about the regal-looking guy?" Margaret asked, looking around. "Shouldn't be too hard to find him... doubt there's more than one respectable guy in this whole stadium..."

Jericho lunged across the final ten feet just as Triple-H came to and made a grab for his foot. His hand smacked into the Rock's outstretched palm; the crowd erupted in a frenzy, and the People's Champ stepped through the ropes with a look of intensity on his face.

Alexander looked over at Margaret, feigning hurt. "I thought you said we were respectable, sensible, intelligent, almost model citizens."

The Rock blocked a right hand from Triple-H, backed him into the corner with three of his own, spit into his palm, and knocked him up onto the turnbuckle with the fourth one. Benoit ran in, ducked the Rock's first punch, but turned around and the Rock promptly floored him with the second one.

"Oh, joy. Here begins the impossible 'Rock beats up every single person in the arena' part of the match. Someone just smack him with a chair or something, for the love of God! I mean, what, did his writers forget to write in some moves for him, they were so busy with his catchphrases? Like we haven't heard 'If ya smellllllllalalalalalaalLELL what the ROCK is COOKIN'!' enough times to commit suicide over..." Ian grumbled, leaning forward against the safety rail.

Triple-H stormed out of the corner and ran headlong into a DDT, rolling him off the top of his head to his back, putting him out of the picture. Benoit staggered up only to find his left arm slung over the Rock's shoulder. The Rock lifted him up, forward, and then down on his back, landing one of his two signature moves, the Rock Bottom. Benoit rolled towards the side of the ring, the raucous cheers of the crowd echoing all around him.

Margaret smiled coyly at Alexander, who just sighed and shook his head. "Don't lump me and him together. We're completely different. Completely. I don't know how, I just know we are."

Jericho knocked Benoit out of the ring with a dropkick to the Canadian Crippler's shoulder, sending him tumbling onto the cold, hard floor outside the ring. Triple-H worked his way back to his feet, stumbled around for a minute, and ran right into the Rock's signature spinebuster.

Margaret grinned. "Fine. Okay, we know how to recognize them, but you DO realize how hard it is to see anyone from these seats? I'm thrilled that I'm front row for this electrifying action," she rolled her eyes, "but we have a job to do, and there's no way to spot them from here."

The Rock kicked Triple-H's left arm in and looked to the crowd, who roared in recognition of the People's Elbow, the Rock's finishing maneuver. With slow, deliberate movements, he pulled off one of his elbow pads and tossed it into the front rows of the arena. Outside the ring, Jericho pulled Benoit back up to his feet, the crowd cheering them on.

"You're right," Alexander nodded. "I'm not entirely sure, though, where to get a better perspective. We can't exactly get higher up without drawing too much attention, not to mention losing our seats. Ian? Any suggestions?"

The Rock rebounded off one set of ropes, hopped over Triple-H, and bounced off the other set, flashbulbs going off as he ran. With a kick above The Game's shoulders, the Rock dropped down, driving his elbow into Triple-H's chest. As the People's Champ went to make a cover, Stephanie slid slowly onto the apron, shouting at the ref and keeping him from making a count. Benoit threw Jericho into the Spanish announcers' table, knocking Jericho awry and to the ground. The Crippler took one look at the ring, climbed to the opposite side of the ring where Stephanie was, and started climbing the turnbuckle.

Ian looked at Alexander, and then at the ring. "Yeah, I've got one idea," he said, grinning slyly.

Margaret and Alexander barely had time to exchange a worried glance before Ian sprang over the safety rail, shoved the bellkeeper out of his metal folding chair, and jumped up onto the apron. Benoit attempted to jump from the top rope and land his signature diving headbutt, but Ian laid him out with a chairshot to the back, knocking him off course and sending him crashing to the mat.

Alexander grinned and vaulted the safety rail, avoiding Margaret's attempt to grab his coat and haul him back to sanity. He slid into the ring and threw the referee bodily to where the Rock was waiting on someone to do a count. Stephanie never budged from her spot or bothered to pick up her jaw as Ian, Alexander, and the entire crowd counted the 1-2-3 with the referee.

The Rock's music kicked up as Benoit rolled out of the ring, a look of astonishment rather than great pain plastered across his face. Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley pulled her husband from the ring, her eyes fixed on Ian and Alexander, who were celebrating with a somewhat bewildered Rock and Jericho.

A shout from the crowd and the riff of an electric guitar signaled the entrance of the Road Dogg, the only white male in the WWF with dreadlocks, and X-Pac, the long-haired light heavyweight. The two of them hit the ring at the same time Triple-H and Chris Benoit slid back in. The Rock, Jericho, Ian, and Alexander backed into a protective ring, each one of them watching one of the DX members.

Benoit charged Jericho, arm already behind him to punch, but Ian cut him off with a perfect spear tackle to the stomach, knocking the air out of Benoit and them both to the ground. X-Pac ran towards the fallen Mage, but found himself smacking into the mat as Jericho grabbed a fistful of his hair and flung him down. Alexander blocked an overhand punch the Road Dogg threw at him, landed three quick right jabs to the wrestler's jaw, did bit of an improvisational dance to the crowd's delight, and floored Road Dogg with a hard left hand. Triple-H missed an overhand punch of his own on the Rock and went straight into the Rock Bottom.

DX bailed to regroup, X-Pac holding the back of his head and groaning. The Rock climbed up on the turnbuckle nearest them, closed his eyes, and tilted his head out towards the crowd, greeting the flashbulbs. Jericho climbed the opposite turnbuckle and just grinned ear to ear.

Ian glanced over at Alexander, who clapped him on the shoulder and nodded. They climbed opposite turnbuckles and posed for the crowd in their own way, basking in their newfound glory, Alexander with one fist raised, Ian with both arms out from him, looking up to the rafters. The flashbulbs increased, and Ian closed his eyes a la the Rock and tilted his head back, a coy grin slightly spreading across his face.

As DX retreated to the back, the Rock and Jericho walked into the middle of the ring, discussing something about the match. Ian and Alexander quietly slipped out of the ring and walked back over to Margaret, Ian pausing to take the folding chair and set it back up for the bellkeeper with a meek bow and smile. Margaret, like the rest of the crowd, stood in front of her chair, but her arms were folded in front of her chest and she was grinning despite herself. "That was most gratuitous display of magick I have ever seen in my life," she said.

Ian merely shrugged. "Hey, it got the job done, didn't it? Plus, it gave me a chance to work a bit more with Entropy, Time, and Mind, which everyone knows I'm a bit out of practice with."

Margaret eyed Ian warily. "You make supermarket clerks knock entire shelves over all the time because of the 'random' slick spot on the floor. You're not out of practice with that at all." Sighing, she turned to Alexander. "Did that whole display have anything good as its result?"

Alexander grinned and nodded. "We found them. Three rows back on the other side of the ring. The red sunglasses were what gave it away. Well, after some Working, at least."

Margaret tilted her head to one side. "How so?"

"A little temporary alteration of what range of light beams my eye would recognize," Alexander said, the pride in his voice plain. "I took college physics, I know all about the nature of light and all that. If all I can see is red, red glasses stick out like Ian in a convent, which, you'll recall, stuck out rather well."

Ian grinned widely.

"Don't worry, Margaret, we'll trail them out to their cars," Alexander assured her. "Ian'll be in contact, won't you, Ian?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, contact, yeah. Sure thing. Look, I'm going to go sign some autographs and generally be famous. You should do the same, Alex. Put some personality behind them good looks and styling moves." Ian sauntered off to shake a few hands.

Alexander watched him go. "I'll keep an eye on our chosen ones. You head on out. Wait by the main entrance, we'll meet back there."

"Sure, I guess," Margaret said, picking up her empty Coke cup. "See you guys outside."

Alexander waved as she worked her way back through the crowd, and then grinned as he shook the hand of a wide-eyed eight-year old.