Disclaimer- The Bubbles is not affiliated with X-Men: Evolution. It is the property of Stan Lee, whose shoes The Bubbles is not worthy to tie the laces of.
A/N- Ok, so you're probably wondering why I wrote another Technophobe after I made it so clear that six was the last one. Well, I didn't. I wrote this on a while back as the original installment V, but then I decided that I liked my other idea for number five better and abandoned it. Now I found it in a pile of papers in my room, and typed and revamped it. You are probably also wondering why I made it 4&½ instead of 7. Well, that's because this one takes place between IV and V. Also, I liked the ending of VI as the ending for the series and wanted to keep it that way.
So, there you go.
(o.o.o)
St. John Allerdyce, known better to comrades and fangirls alike as Pyro, was a man of few desires. In fact, in order to be truly happy, Pyro had only three desires. However, as these desires caused much trouble for his fellow acolytes, Pyro was often denied these desires, and thus made him very sad.
Poor Pyro.
Anyway, his first desire, brought about by greed, was to meet a girl named Sheila. Annoyed by Pyro's constant use of Australian slang, Gambit had promised to give him five dollars should he ever meet a girl whose name was actually Sheila. Likewise, Gambit was to become five dollars richer in the event that they net a girl called Chere.
Second of Pyro's desires was to burn things. He loved to watch the flames dance about, licking the air and the dark tendrils of smoke contrasting the bright orange and red of the flames. It was a metaphor for life, struggling to survive only to bow to the inevitable and be snuffed out. Like life and power, flame could harm or help, destroy lives or save them.
Plus, it was really cool to look at.
Magneto had disallowed his use of fire except on missions, training, or emergency situations, and this too made Pyro sad.
Poor Pyro.
The third, and most immediate, of Pyro's desires was to re-obtain his Yoko-Kurama plushie. Magneto had taken it as a punishment to the Aussie for blowing up his Super Awesome Deluxe Mega Cool Surround Sound Entertainment System!
No matter how much Pyro insisted that it wasn't his fault, and that whoever equipped an entertainment system with a self-destruct button should be shot, hung, electrocuted, fed to sharks, and menaced with dull sporks, and how much he begged, Magneto still insisted on punishing him. He had taken the plushie away, then put it in a glass case in the middle of the living room (right in front of the TV, so that they'd ended up moving the couch) and surrounding it with the most up-to-date, state-of-the-art security system that intimidating magnet powers could buy.
"All right, jump, jump, duck, side-step left, side-step right, duck, drop and roll, jump, step back, dash forward, drop and crawl, and then walk straight forward. Crikey, what is this, a high tech security system or a school dance?"
Gambit looked over the top of the dog show magazine he was reading (Snap- o.O?) to watch the young pyromaniac.
"Pyro, just what are you doing?"
"I'm studying the code for beating the laser grid on Magsy's security system."
Remy put the magazine down completely. "Dis should be interesting," he said. "I'll wait to find what sort of shampoo Prince Squiggly uses for making his hair glossy."
Pyro practiced the moves for several minutes, and Gambit had to admit that he was right, it did look like one of those weird dances that kids these days do.
Once he'd finished the code for the laser grid, he moved on to the missiles.
Missiles? Boy, Magneto doesn't want Pyro to get that plushie, does he?
"Okay, so all I have to do is dodge seven missiles, and I'll be on to the next stage. Unfortunately, they're all gonna be comin' at me at once, from all directions. And they're heat-seeking missiles!"
Pyro's body temperature was higher than usual. The missiles would hone in on him like, um…
Like Wolverine on Sabertooth!
Pyro sighed and walked out of the room dejectedly. Gambit looked at him, then at the plushie. Was Pyro giving up? Had he decided that perhaps it would be best to wait out his punishment and not try to beat Magneto's security system?
Of course not, silly goose!
Pyro returned moments later completely covered in mud. No really, head to toe. Sabertooth was going to maul him when he got home and saw the mud tracked onto the pretty white carpets. That is, if Pyro managed to not blow up the base first. Which was highly unlikely.
Gambit pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Pyro," he said, "Why are you covered in mud?"
Pyro grinned. "It blocks body heat! Yeah, I saw it on a cartoon once! This guy was trying to beat this snake, and the snake could only see by body heat, so he covered 'isself in mud!" He stood in front of the border of the security system. "Now I only have to dodge the spinning tops of doom at the end level and I'll have Yoko back!"
He dived into the boundaries. Gambit watched as he jumped, jumped, ducked, side-stepped left, side-stepped right, ducked, dropped and rolled, jumped, stepped back, dashed forward, dropped and crawled, and then walked straight forward. Gambit held his breath as the heat guided missiles zoomed around in mid-air, looking for heat. And Gambit gasped quite audibly when Pyro made the spinning tops of doom crash into each other and took his plushie from the glass box it was in.
It wasn't that Gambit doubted Pyro's abilities as a thief, it was that…no, that was exactly it. Gambit had fully expected Pyro to trip on a laser, zap himself, and run crying while the entire base exploded.
But no, he had done it! He had acquired his plushie and was now wiping mud from his face. Wait, that wasn't good.
"No Pyro, don't!"
He was too late. All seven missiles sailed in and landed on Pyro, blasting him to bits. Gambit choked back a sob at the thought of life without his Australian buddy. He flashbacked to a lot of 70's comedy spoof montages of him and Pyro that had never happened. It was true. You never do know what you've got until it's gone. He sure would miss Pyro.
But all was not over! At the last second, Pyro had jumped, and the seven missiles had collided into each other. Pyro was fine, as was Yoko. Living with Gambit had taught Pyro to dodge explosions quite well, just as living with Pyro had taught the others to be very good firemen. Magneto was sure going to be ticked when he saw the remains of his security system, though. He would have to deal with that later.
Pyro coughed and staggered over to Gambit.
"Hey, we never did a Gilligan's Island spoof," he said. He got very excited. "But we so should! You c'n be Mary-Anne and run around in skimpy clothes, an' I'll be Ginger cause I'm better looking!"
Gambit stopped montaging and turned slowly to look at Pyro.
"Gambit t'ought you was dead, Pyro. Why are you not dead, Pyro?"
"Cause I dodged the blast!" He giggled, then noticed the angry look on Remy's face. "Uh, Rem? Remmers? Remykins? Waaaaaah!"
St. John ran from the room, dodging the card that Gambit had thrown in his direction. Once he was out of the room, Gambit picked up the card and returned it to the deck. He smirked.
"Gambit done taught dat boy too well," he said, and sat to watch TV.
(o.o.o)
When Sabertooth returned home, he found Gambit watching TV, whilst the charred and slightly smoking remains of Magneto's security system marred the pretty white carpet he had worked so hard to clean. He sighed and took his carpet cleaning kit out of the broom closet.
"I'm going to kill Pyro one of these days. And I'm going to do it very slowly and very painfully, with much usage of dull sporks.
(o.o.o)
Bubbles- I've been waiting a very long time to use that line at the end.
Snap- Y'know, it's kinda disturbing that Pyro wants to play the female characters of Gilligan's Island…And that Gambit reads dog show magazines.
Bubbles- Oh, yeah, all the time! I'll probably end up getting struck by inspiration at around 12:37 tonight, around the time that Ryan and Colin are narrating for each other, and write a story about Pyro forcing the others to do 70's sitcom spoofs, and as soon as I get my notebook back from BD, I will write the story about Sheila.
Snap- So, never, then?
Bubbles- One more thing, did anyone figure out which cartoon Pyro got the mud idea from? Right after I typed it an annoying voice in my head (looks accusingly at Snap) said that no one would.
Very Random Quote-
Bubbles- (speaks with mouth full)
Tocxica- You know, the sad part isn't that you're still able to form sounds with your mouth that full, the sad part is that I understood that.