Board Room
By Kairi Taylor

Disclaimer: The characters are not mine. They’re copyright of those dumbasses that couldn’t give a rat’s ass about continuity. (They are referred to as Marvel.)

There were days when Sean Cassidy wondered if he should even get out of his bed.
It had been months since the Xavier Academy in Salem was closed down indefinitely by Professor X. The team was never quite itself after Everett’s tragic death & Emma’s rather erratic behavior. While Jonothon became an X-Man, the students have all pursued their own path in life. As for himself, he decided to return to Ireland. It was rough dealing with the death of his ex wife, Moira, but the way he went about it was a sign that things about himself were changing too greatly for him to be a proper Headmaster. His constant drinking was affecting his work, not to mention the respect the kids had for him. A solo journey to his homeland was just what Cassidy needed.
Fast forward to now. He found himself crawling on his belly in a series of air ducts with an old friend of his, Muldoon, on a cold, damp, Halloween day. Interpol had contacted Cassidy about assisting them in a covert operation. They were tracking the activities of Henry Peter Gyrich, assistant to the late Senator Kelly. There were reports that he was frequently seen with suspected members of the Friends of Humanity, who had gone underground, in order to keep their future acts more discreet. Interpol had acquired enough evidence to formally charge Gyrich, but they needed to get evidence of him planning an attack.
As Sean & Muldoon crawled in the air ducts, casually flicking away the roaches that crept on their arms, Sean asked Muldoon directly “Why the hell did I ever agree to do this with you?”
“Hey, you’re the guy the bigwigs were pushing for.” Muldoon answered. “They told me to convince you to help us out no matter what. I know you hate doing covert missions & everything, but think about it—you get to help put Gyrich away for good.”
“Aye, that is true.” Sean agreed. Checking his watch, he asked “How much longer to our position?”
“A few meters ahead.” Muldoon pointed to a grate with a bright yellow light streaming upwards. As they crawled to the grate, they looked down & saw six men, all in sterile blue suits, sitting at a square table. “Well, what have we here?” Muldoon said, pulling out a small, compact camera. “We have some of the most influential businessmen & senators assembled here.”
“Gyrich will be in there in 3 minutes.” Sean reminded Muldoon.
“Right. All right you pompous bastards, smile for the camera.”

The boardroom where the senior members of the FOH were seated was rather large. A black recliner sat in the corner of the room, across from it was a TV set. The banners of the FOH were hanging from the walls, one with the words ‘Human Rights First!’ scrawled on the bottom. One on the members, a young, red haired man, shifted nervously in his chair. The door to the room opened & in stepped Henry Peter Gyrich, accompanied by a large, hulking, muscle head in a black suit. Gyrich wore sunglasses as always & wore a look of confidence. He sauntered over to the head of the table, saying “You’ll forgive me if I’m a minute late, but my bodyguard Geoff here had to make sure we were not disturbed. Anyway, gentlemen, as you know, I have assembled you here today to let you in on some fantastic news.” Pulling out a remote, he smiled & said, “We have successfully acquired the 2nd Exodus virus. Now, if you’ll all pay attention to the screen here…” Turning to the front of the room, Gyrich pressed a button & a huge white screen dropped down silently from the top of the room. The lights were dimmed & a projector lit up the image of a rather nasty looking virus. Next to it was a map of NYC with several circles in certain areas. “The first city we will test the virus out on is Manhattan. As you know, considerable amounts of mutants live in this city. The 2nd Exodus virus works rather ingeniously. It was engineered to attack specifically all those with the active x-factor gene in their system. It will cause an unstoppable bout of insanity, paranoia, followed by excessive internal bleeding & death. Best of all, it can activate in 24 hours. This will give some of you enough time to draft bills that will give local law enforcement & militias power to kill any suspected mutants with the virus. The mutants will be exposed for the threat they are & we can shortly begin our worldwide operation.”
The lights came back on & Gyrich said “Gentlemen, there is no one who can stop us now, not even supposed superheroes such as the outlaw X-Men or the Avenge—“ Henry stopped in mid sentence as he looked at the corner of the room. Sitting in the chair was a young man, in a brown leather jacket & blue jeans, casually reading a copy of ‘The Lancet’ which had Kevin Smith & Jason Mewes on the cover. “Excuse me, but who the hell are you & how did you get in here?” Gyrich asked angrily.
The young man looked up at them. His eyes, strangely enough, were black. Not dark brown, but black. “Pardon me if I seem a bit intrusive,” he said “but I didn’t want to interrupt your somewhat interesting little speech. But you are Henry Peter Gyrich, right?”
“I don’t know who you think you are, but if you don’t clear out of my headquarters in five minutes…”
“Save the dramatics, old man. You’ll die of a heart attack. Which is something that would REALLY cramp my style. You see, judgment has been passed down by the head chief himself & according to the rules, I have to carry out you sentence.”
“Apparently, you are not only stupid, but a certified fruitcake. Geoff, be a good man & kill him.” Geoff smiled & cracked his knuckles as the young man casually said, “I wouldn’t do this if I were you, jumbo size.” Geoff smiled ready to throw a punch. Sighing, the young man placed a hand on his chest. Geoff immediately clutched his chest & fell on the ground, dead.
“What in the fuck—“ Gyrich spat out.
“Just watch.”
Before their eyes, the occupants of the room saw something that could at best be described as ghastly. The hair on the corpse was growing rapidly, turning white & rapidly falling out. The eyeballs rolled back in the sockets & dried up. The gums in the mouth were quickly shrinking & the skin was becoming tighter around the skeleton, turning into a puke green shade. In short, the man was decomposing right in front of them.
“Now, in case you have not caught on, I am referred to as Death. I know, I don’t have long black robes, but I do have one of these.” Death pulled out a long stick from his jacket & immediately, the blade of a scythe materialized out of nowhere. “Now, have a seat, Henry, & we’ll go over this quickly. By the way, in case you were going to try to silently buzz your guards in…” Snapping his fingers, Death turned the TV on. Images were shown of all the guards, slain rather messily. Some guards were ripped in half or were slit in the center, their entrails hanging out, and blood leaking out all over the floor. Some had their throats cut. Others were either missing limbs or their heads.
“You know, you guys were lucky. I was sent from Heaven. You have no idea what the guy from Hell would have done with them. Ok, as I was saying, you have all been judged because you have based your lives on destroying people you have no knowledge of. You are all guilty of an extreme form of prejudice against those with a genetic difference. And even know, you plan something so horrendous that it can not be ignored by the office upstairs.”
“Now see here!” Henry growled. “Those freaks are a menace to all decent humans. Ever since they first reared their heads, they have been nothing but a plague to us. How can God seriously allow these demons to live?"
“Well, while it’s true that some of these guys are anything but saints, you sir are no better than say…Sabretooth. Besides, who are you to question why God lets other different beings live? You’re in the same league of stupidity as the Nazis. Nevertheless, each of you has some serious flaws in your framework. Like you, Senator Wilson.” Death walked behind the seats of each of the assembled group. “You murdered a Spanish man who you suspected of being a mutant then raped his wife & 11 year old daughter. But, hey, thanks to your unlimited funds, you got off scott free. Mr. Helmsley, successful law firm in Ohio, secretly approved of the firing of 20 of your best lawyers because you suspected they were gay. One committed suicide. She was 26…& three months pregnant.”
Walking at a broad pace, Death continued. “Senator Rogers here cast away his son when he found out he was a mutant & secretly funded the lynching of 60 suspected mutants in his hometown of Macon, Georgia. To add some variety, he threw in some African American reporters. Dr. Matthews here poisoned over a dozen patients this year because he thought they were mutants. Also raped a 10-year-old boy in his son’s class.
Mr. Holmes, senior vice president of a successful department store chain, burned down a couple of small homes out of fear of people discovering that you fornicated with a young woman who may have been a mutant. No need to tell everyone that the fire spread to countless other homes, killing many innocents. Young Mr. Grey here…is actually innocent. Aside from the guilty pleasure of looking up porn & hentai at CG Shrines, Henry convinced you here that being here was ‘the right thing’. I would suggest you leave.”
As Grey quickly got up & left the room, Death said “As for you, Henry Peter Gyrich…you have many sins on your soul. I could list them all right now, but that would take at least two days tops. In short, you gentlemen are what we refer to in Heaven as ‘The scum of the scum of the fucking Earth.’ You who are assembled here are all guilty of atrocities that can never be forgiven. You were even set to commit a series of acts of genocide. Therefore, we have no recourse but to speed up your execution. Normally, I would use my little buddy here, but after a short conversation with Michael…I have something much more appropriate.” Raising a hand, a large flaming silver sword dropped into Death’s possession. The last words that Henry Peter Gyrich would utter on earth before the sword cut into his abdomen was “Oh, fuck.” As he slowly died, Henry’s began to see something he would become accustomed to for all eternity. And needless to say, it was lit by some seriously wicked flames.

Nick Fury also had days where he wished he never got out of bed.
The agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. looked at all the corpses that were in the room. They were killed rather visciously, almost worst than the guards. At least some of the guards kept all their body parts, genitals included. As agents collected evidence & took photos, Nick said to Sean “Ok, let me see if I understand this. You’re telling me that Death himself came in here, let Grey go because he had no real serious sins & proceeded to cut this fuckers like he was a fucking butcher?”
“Aye, that he did.” Sean replied.
“Quick note, he was from Heaven.” Muldoon pointed out.
“I’ll remember that.” Fury said sarcastically. “Well, you two have it all on video & are certifiable witnesses. So, I guess we’ll have to think something to tell the press.”
“Let me guess, we’re gonna feed them a bullshit story.” Muldoon said.
“Of course lad!” Sean said. “Who the fuck is going to believe that Death himself came down & wiped out all these men. Now, if ya don’t mind, I’m going home. I need a good stiff drink right now.”.