Struggle for Sanity

Magneto exited his lab in a rare good mood. He had just spent the entire morning running experiments and analyzing results without a single mishap or interruption. He had worked very hard over the past several hours and was quite pleased with the results. "Now this is what a typical day should be like," he said to himself while making his way down the hallway. "Peaceful, quiet and productive. Maybe things are finally starting to go right around here."

Just then he saw Piotr enter the garage with his arms full of large rubber tires. "Ah, even those maniacs are busy and hard at work," Magneto nodded as the door to the garage closed and was soon followed by the loud sounds of banging and pounding. "Though what could Colossus be doing with all those tires? Maybe he's performing maintenance on their motorcycles again."

Magneto continued walking for a moment and then stopped as he heard some strange noises coming from Storage Room Seven. "What could that be?" He strode over and used his powers to open the door. "What the…"

"Hahahahaha! Soon you will be done! Yes! Yes!" Pyro cackled with his back towards Magneto while standing in front what appeared to be an enormous roll of white putty. The huge, pasty mass curved away from him and nearly filled the whole room. "Now to bring on the heat!"

"Pyro!" Magneto shouted at the unexpected sight.

"Hey boss," Pyro turned around with a big smile on his face. "Wanna stay and watch this thing bake?"

"What is going on here?" Magneto demanded angrily. "And what the heck is that?"

"It's flour dough," Pyro said excitedly. "I'm making the world's biggest pretzel!"

"Huh?" Magneto blinked.

"Yep, this baby is gonna be the biggest, bloody pretzel the world has ever seen," Pyro grinned at the massive roll of dough that was nearly twice as tall as he was. "The only problem is once it's done, how am I gonna prevent it from getting all old and moldy?"

"A pretzel?" Magneto stared as the gigantic, uncooked pastry lay on its side waiting to be baked. "Why in the world are you making a giant pretzel?"

"Because I wanted a pretzel and we don't have any," Pyro said matter of factly. "And because Gambit took all the tanks of ethylene and wouldn't let me have any of 'em."

"He what?" Magneto did a double take. "Oh no! Not again!" He quickly rushed out of the room.

"Hey, you're gonna miss the best part!" Pyro shouted after him. "Oh well. Your loss." He turned towards his waiting pretzel and fired up his flamethrowers. "It's baking time!"

"I don't believe this. How did that lunatic manage to get his hands on more ethylene?" Magneto grumbled as he flew down the hallway, completely unaware that Pyro had just set the entire storage room on fire in order to bake his pretzel. "I thought I locked them all away after the last time half the base got blown up. If Gambit destroys my private bathroom one more time I'm gonna skin him alive and nail him to the wall!"

Magneto reached the recreation room and found Remy casually draped across the couch playing with a lockpick. "Gambit!"

"Yeah?" Remy didn't even bother to look up. "What do you want?"

"You know what I want!" Magneto growled dangerously. "Where are all the ethylene tanks you took?"

"Gone," Remy replied lazily.

"Gone?" Magneto repeated furiously. "What do you mean they're gone?"

"I've used 'em all up," Remy said finally glancing at Magneto. "They're all empty."

"What? All of them?" Magneto glared at Remy. "What could you have possibly gone and used them all for?"

"Well how else was I supposed to inflate nine thousand pairs of latex gloves?" Remy gave him a look.

"Huh?" Magneto blinked. "Latex gloves?"

"Yeah, latex gloves," Remy pocketed the lockpick, pulled out a spare glove and showed it to Magneto. "You really think I'd go and blow 'em all up by mouth? That'd take forever."

"But why did you even feel the need to blow up nine thousand pairs of latex gloves?" Magneto asked. "What could have possibly possessed you to do such a stupid thing?"

"Well, I just happened to acquire a very interesting piece of information," Remy smirked. "Did you know that Sabertooth is afraid of cow udders?"

"Huh?" Magneto blinked. "You'll have to repeat that. You couldn't have said it right. I could have sworn you just claimed Sabertooth was afraid of cow udders."

"I did," Remy confirmed.

"What? That is without a doubt the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard!" Magneto roared. "And considering how much time I've spent listening to you idiots that's saying something!"

"It's true!" Remy insisted. "Of course I wanted to confirm it. So I went and blew up all those latex gloves so they looked like cow udders and stuck 'em all over the hallways leading from Sabes' room to see how he'd react."

"You mean you wanted to try and scare the living daylights out of him," Magneto translated.

"Yeah," Remy admitted. "I don't know what's taking him so long. He should have spotted some of 'em by now."

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Sabertooth could be heard screaming in the distance.

"Yes!" Remy grinned. "We have lift off!"

"YAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH! NOT THE UDDERS! EVIL UDDERS!" Sabertooth shrieked in terror. "GET AWAY! GET AWAY! HELP! SOMEBODY SAVE ME! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

"Wow, I didn't think Sabes could scream that high," Remy blinked.

"I don't believe it," Magneto listened in shock as Sabertooth continued to wail about the evils of cow udders. "How could Sabertooth of all people be scared of cow udders? Why is he scared of cow udders?"

"I'm not quite sure," Remy scratched his head. "From what I could tell it has something to do with a lightning rod, sweet corn and a lot of broken glass."

"IT'S AN INVASION! THE UDDERS ARE EVERYWHERE! GAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"Man, I'm sure glad I set up cameras in all the hallways before hand," Remy said. "After I edit them out it will be one of my best videos yet."

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

"Oh great! Now what?" Magneto shouted as a series of small explosions began to go off in rapid succession.

"Ah, perfect timing," Remy grinned.

"Perfect timing for what?" Magneto glared at him.

"Well, I didn't want all that ethylene to go to waste," Remy laughed nervously. "So I charged one of the latex gloves and set it to go off right around now. That way it'd set off a chain reaction and detonate the rest of the gloves with Sabes caught right the middle."

"WHAT?!" Magneto shouted.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

"AAARRRGGGHHHHHH! THE UDDERS ARE ATTACKING! RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!"

"Yahooooo!" Pyro happily skipped into the room. "Hey Gambit! They're done! They're finally done! Colossus just finished them!"

"Alright!" Remy cheered and jumped up from the couch. "Let's go!"

"Oh no you don't! You've done more than enough damage already!" Magneto snapped at Remy before turning to glare at Pyro. "As for you, what's done? What the heck are you talking about?"

"AAAAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Sabertooth ran into the room screaming while covered in scorch marks and with small pieces of latex stuck in his hair. "UDDERS! UDDERS! EVIL UDDERS!" He dove behind Magneto and curled up into a ball. "SAVE ME! FOR THE LOVE OF MIKE SAVE ME!"

"Aaaccckkk!" Magneto tried to keep his balance as Sabertooth desperately hugged him around his legs. "Sabertooth you idiot! Get off me!"

"Keep them away!" Sabertooth whimpered as he screwed his eyes tightly shut. "Keep them away! Don't let them get me!"

"Victor!" Magneto forcefully extracted himself from Sabertooth's grasp and slapped him across the face. "Get a hold of yourself man!"

"But…but…the udders," Sabertooth whined.

"Victor, those are not real udders," Magneto said patiently. "They are just inflated latex gloves. Understand?"

"No udders?" Sabertooth looked up at him with wide eyes.

"That's right. No udders." Magneto picked off a piece of latex stuck in Sabertooth's hair and showed it to him. "See? It's fake. They're all fake. Got it?"

"Fake," Sabertooth carefully felt the remains of the destroyed glove. "Fake!" He roared and jumped up with his eyes radiating fury. "FAKE! AAARRRGGGHHH!" He started madly tearing at his hair. "ALRIGHT, WHO DID IT?! WHO MADE ALL THOSE FAKE UDDERS?! WHO?! WHO?! WHOEVER DID IS GOING TO DIE! DIE I TELL YOU!"

"Well he recovered fast," Magneto grumbled. "Too bad he'll have to wait in line until I'm done with you Gambit…Gambit?" Magneto noticed he and Sabertooth were the only ones in the room. Remy and Pyro had slipped away as soon as Sabertooth ran in. "Oh no! Where did that maniac and the other nut go now?"

"DIE! DIE! DIE!" Sabertooth ran out of the room yelling with murder in his eyes.

"Wait a minute! Get back here!" Magneto shouted after him. "Oh forget it!" He put a hand to his head as he tried to make sense of things. "How did all this happen? How did such a good day descend into utter anarchy?"

BUMP! BUMP!

CRASH!

"WHEEEEEE!"

"OUTTA MY WAY!"

BUMP!

"RRROOOAAARRR!"

WHAM!

"HAHAHAHAHA!"

"Oh for crying out loud! Now what's going on?" Magneto groaned and headed for the door. "Please tell me those fools just went and managed to kill each other…aaahhhhhh!"

"Wahoooooo!" Pyro whooped with glee as he flew by Magneto while riding inside a homemade, four wheel, pedal powered bumper car.

"Tally-ho!" Remy and Piotr followed after him also driving bumper cars. The double layer of rubber tires wrapped around the car's exteriors made for very impressive impacts. Especially when colliding with objects like the couch, chairs and lamp.

SMASH!

"WHAT THE DEVIL?" Magneto yelled, having just barely managed to avoid being hit by Pyro. "BUMPER CARS?! YOU IDIOTS ARE DRIVING BUMPER CARS?! ARE YOU INSANE?!"

"Ha!" Piotr laughed as he rear-ended Remy and sent his car spinning into a wall. "Got you!"

BUMP!

"Stupid question," Magneto groaned as the Acolytes proceeded to trash the recreation room.

"Ohhh…" Sabertooth moaned painfully as he lay on the floor just outside the doorway. The multiple sets of fresh tire tracks on his clothes and face showed he had been run over more than once. "That…really…hurt…owie…"

"Come on! Race ya to Mags' office!" Pyro called out as he, Remy and Piotr bumped into each as they sped out of the room.

"OH NO YOU DON'T!" Magneto took off after them as they ran over Sabertooth once again. "IF YOU IDIOTS MESS UP MY OFFICE YOU'RE ALL DEAD! DEAD YOU HEAR ME?!" He shouted as he chased after the Acolytes. "And to think this has been one of my more calm and peaceful days!"

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men: Evolution.