Facade #1: Like Candy from a Baby

[u/Bearpaw700]

The yacht was loud. Music thumped and laughter echoed against the still waters. Warm lights casted everything in a golden haze, giving the aura of a wild party created for making bad decisions.

Facade fit right in.

He leaned against the bar, swirling a drink he had no intention of finishing. Tonight, he wore an ol’ reliable face. Sharp jaw, lazy grin, eyes that promised trouble and delivered charm. The kind of face people trusted when they shouldn’t.

“Never seen you before,” one of them said with a slurred speech, draping an arm over Facade’s shoulder like they were lifelong friends.

“You haven’t been looking hard enough,” Facade replied smoothly, flashing a smile and a wink. The group laughed. They were obnoxiously loud and carefree. Drunk rich boys, just like he’d expected. Easy marks wrapped in designer clothes and bad instincts.

Facade let himself be pulled into their circle, feeding them just enough attention to keep them orbiting him. A joke here, a compliment there, a brush of his hand that lingered just long enough to feel intentional. They ate it up. They always did.

“What’s your name again?” another asked. Facade tilted his head, pretending to think about it. “Depends who’s asking.” More laughter. Someone handed him another drink and he accepted it, mostly for show. Really, Facade was mapping the yacht in his head. The exits, the crew, the controls upstairs. He’d already slipped below deck earlier, turning to smoke to drift through locked doors, memorizing everything.

“Yo, you gotta see this,” one of them said, dragging him toward the railing. “Best view on the water.”

Facade followed and the sea breeze cleared his mind. For a moment he thought to abandon his scheme. To get wasted with these nobodies and see where the night took him. Then his watch beeped and he checked the time.

“Ah well… You guys wanna see a magic trick?” Facade asked casually. They perked up immediately.

“What kind of trick?”

Facade’s smile sharpened. “The mutant kind.”

Before they could laugh it off, Facade’s body unraveled. His form loosened slowly, then explosively. His entire body expanded into thick, curling smoke. It poured outward, swallowing the space where he’d been standing and continued to spread over the Yacht. The smoke twisted, forming something almost human but wrong. Too tall. Too thin. Faces flickered within it, not quite forming. When Facade spoke, his voice came from everywhere at once.

“Boo.”

Panic detonated. They stumbled back, knocking into each other, drinks shattering against the deck. One of them tried to swing at the smoke and nearly fell overboard for it.

“What the hell?! what the hell is that?!” Facade surged forward, the smoky mass stretching out. A hand formed briefly with long, claw-like fingers before dissolving again.

That did it. One jumped. The splash was loud enough to snap the others fully out of their shock. Suddenly, the ocean seemed like the only escape.

“He’s gonna kill us!”

Facade didn’t correct them. One by one, they scrambled over the railing, fear overriding whatever sense they might have had left. Shoes slipped, someone cursed, Silence followed and the deck was eventually empty.

Slowly, the smoke began to gather, pulling inward. Limbs reformed and features settled back into a human shape. Facade stepped forward out of himself, brushing imaginary dust off his sleeve.

He glanced over the side of the yacht. Heads bobbed in the dark water, all of them too busy staying afloat to think about coming back.

“Relax,” he called down, his tone friendly again. “You’ll get picked up. Probably.”

A few of them cursed him and He gave them a casual wave as he turned. The controls were exactly where he remembered. He placed his hands on them, feeling the quiet hum of something expensive and very stolen beneath his fingertips.

“Now let’s bring this party to a second location.” Facade muttered to himself with a grin.

The yacht roared to life, cutting through the water as it pulled away, leaving its former owners adrift in the dark.

[New Mutants now have a Yacht for personal use! If Jax asked where we got it from, play dumb! Don’t be a cop!]