Title: Why Backups Are Good Things
Author: The Xylia/Xylia (depending on the archive)
Genre: Humor/Mystery
Rating: G
Description: Bobby sets up a master prank, but when it gets deleted from his computer he pulls John and Jubilee in to help him recreate it. (And it goes from there…)
Universe/time: I would put this in the movie section, but the average movie fan wouldn't get the ending, which is extremely important, so that's what it's doing here. It's mostly based off the movies, but I add in comic things that I know of. Alternate universe in which Pyro is a good guy and Jean is just known as Dr. Jean Grey, not Phoenix or Marvel Girl.
Spoilers: None
Archiving rights: FanFiction.Net
Archiving this piece: Ask me and I'll probably agree.
Disclaimer: Absolutely nothing here with the exception of the storyline (which is not available for stealing/"borrowing") is mine; it all belongs to Marvel. (And if I've accidentally put some movieverse-only stuff in, that belongs to 20th Fox Century.)
Other author's notes: Please review! But if you do, please don't give any spoilers, particularly from the (hopefully) surprise ending.
I don't think I'd have any luck writing in accents, so I'll just say when someone does have one, and you can pretend, 'kay?
Oh, and I don't approve of Cheetos or soda, I just thought it was something Jubilee would like. Cookies…Well, I guess I don't disapprove of them too much.
Bobby Drake stared at his – well, the school's, but he was borrowing it – computer. "Hello?" Jubilee prompted, drawing out the word as she waved a hand between his face and the computer screen. "Are you going to show me that thing or what?"
"I-it's not here," Bobby mumbled in disbelief. "It's gone!"
"What do you mean it's gone?" Jubilee demanded. "You said you were working on it this morning!"
"I was. But now it's gone. Someone must have deleted it." Bobby first checked the Recycle Bin, then ran a search of the entire laptop. Five long minutes passed while they waited for it to finish searching, (it was fairly old, and annoyingly slow and bulky), during which Bobby wondered if Jubilee would break a tooth if he froze her gum. It might be worth it, if it would stop the insistent snapping sound.
The search returned zero results. "So, what was this thing, anyway?" Jubilee asked. "All you told me was that it was the ultimate prank."
"It was," Bobby moaned, his head in his hands. "You know that Nightcrawler is going to take over Cyclops' classes for a week to give him a vacation, right? Well, Cyclops left his disk, which had the lesson plans, quizzes, handouts – everything – on it out. I copied it and created a totally different lesson plan, with stuff that would make Cyclops look like an idiot. And Cyclops will be gone, so he won't be able to defend himself for a whole week. Only now all my work's disappeared!"
Jubilee patted his shoulder in sympathy. "It's still a good plan. Can't you rewrite it?"
"I guess so," Bobby groaned. "But I need to find the disk again, so I can recopy it. I was going to swap Cyclops' disk with one of my own, as soon as I can get one, with all of my stuff on it after he gave his disk to Nightcrawler. I have no idea where Cyclops keeps his disks."
"I'll help you get it," Jubilee announced. "That is, if you're really sure it's been deleted. I'm not ransacking Cyclops' room, which could turn into a suicide mission, unless I'm sure it's for a good cause. Is anything else missing from the computer?"
"No, but it's all school stuff that one of the teachers put a special protection on. The prank documents were the only unprotected things. But I'm sure someone actually deleted it. I mean, I just finished it this morning. Besides which, no one but Storm knows I even have this computer, including John."
"You didn't tell John? But this is a prank; how could you not tell him?"
"Oh, he's about to flunk science, so he's spending all his time on school for a change. I was going to tell him tonight, though."
Jubilee sighed, then grinned. She had resigned herself to the trouble they were going to get in if they were caught, so she could now enjoy the fun they were going to have before then.
"Any luck?" Bobby called from Cyclops and Jean's bathroom. Searching under their bed – it was pretty funny seeing exactly half the bed, including the floor under it, a bit messy, and the other half completely spotless – Jubilee yelled back, "No!" John, in the closet, echoed her. They weren't worried about being too loud, because this, being the first Monday of the month, was movie night. Everyone, with the exception of the "Pranking Trio", was in the auditorium at the other side of the school, staring at a screen. Jubilee regretted missing the movie, but this was infinitely more fun.
"Oh, I hope she never, ever, wears this!" John yelled, emerging from the closet holding a brilliant yellow and green shirt in an extremely unattractive cut.
Bobby, coming out of the bathroom, winced, but Jubilee defended the shirt. "Hey, it's yellow!" When the other two just looked at her, she glared at them. "Well, I like it."
The boys shook their heads and returned to searching.
After another half-hour, they were on the verge of giving up and going to check Cyclops' classrooms, (though the chance he had left anything there was minute), when Jubilee knocked a pillow off the bed. Where the pillow had been was a fairly flat floppy disk case. The trio stared at it. Finally, Pyro voiced their identical thoughts: "He keeps those under his pillow?" They all burst into laughter.
"Well, he probably moves them when he sleeps, or else he'd squish them, but still…" Bobby corrected when they all had recovered. "And…bingo!" He held up a disk clearly labeled "Nightcrawler's Lesson Plans" in block letters.
"Could he possibly make this any easier for us?" Jubilee asked.
Bobby's grin slowly faded as he looked over the room. "Did anyone happen to remember where all the things they took out go?" he asked. "'Cause they're definitely gonna notice this."
"I was thinking about that," Jubilee announced. "They'll notice no matter what, Cyclops is so organized, so we might as well make it harder for him to realize anything's missing, and mess everything up more."
"Judging by where he keeps them, I think he'll notice if a disk is missing," John protested, but Bobby cut him off.
"It's only until I make another copy. We can put it in a classroom or something tomorrow." It didn't take much more convincing.
Grinning from ear to ear, the three set about further demolishing the room. Jubilee felt a little bad about Jean, but she must have known what she was getting in to when she married the most pranked-upon person in the school.
"And what do you think you're doing?" The male voice froze them all. Looking towards the doorway, where both Cyclops and Jean were standing, neither looking very happy, the three immediately assumed angelically innocent faces.
"I, um, thought I got a question wrong on my homework, and I wanted to fix it before you saw it," Bobby improvised. "Pyro and Jubes were helping me. Oh, look! There it is!" He dove for a piece of paper with his name on it. "See? I think question five should be, um, nine instead of eight." The other two nodded.
"It just popped into his head a little bit ago," John added. "We happened to be there, so we offered to help, naturally."
"Naturally," Cyclops agreed. "And exactly what made you think I keep the homework under the mattress?"
Jubilee's eyes widened as they followed Cyclops' eyes – well, visor, really – to the bed, where she had been trying to flip the mattress over. The three students all made various "um", "well", and "you see" noises, but Cyclops interrupted them.
"I want to know what you three are really looking for. Then you will clean up this mess. If one thing is not where it was before, there will be consequences."
Bobby looked to Jean, hoping for some sympathy, but she looked very angry. Well, if they were in trouble anyway, why not have a little more fun? "Sure," he agreed smoothly. "Let's see, John, you put the disks back under Mr. Summers' pillow. Jubes, can you refill his underwear drawer? Be sure to fold the boxers like they were before."
Cyclops had turned bright red; from what exactly, anger or embarrassment, Bobby wasn't completely sure. "Out!" the man bellowed, pointing to the door. "All of you! Out of my room!" Jean jumped away from the door, narrowly missing the stampede.
Several halls away, the three exchanged high-fives. "We didn't even get into any trouble!" Jubilee exclaimed gleefully.
Bobby grinned. "Better yet, I still have the disk!" The all doubled over in relieved laughter.
It was now ten o'clock, but they had quite a few things planned. Since Bobby and John were the only ones staying in their room, they didn't have to worry about anyone else interrupting them. Jubilee, having stopped by the kitchen, returned with bags of Cheetos, cookies, and pop.
Bobby had already copied the disk's contents on to the computer, so the three of them set about rewriting Kurt's lesson plan.
The next day, whenever the three of them had more than five free minutes, they gathered in the boys' room to work on the new curriculum. Unfortunately, Bobby hadn't been able to get his hands on a disk yet, so he couldn't make a backup, but they doubted someone would try to delete it again, especially when that someone must think that it already was deleted. At 4:15 they had almost finished when they took a break to watch a school-wide TV favorite, which, unlike most shows, played every weekday. When they returned to the laptop afterwards, they were looking forward to finishing their little project before evening. However, they found a very unpleasant surprise.
"This is impossible!" Bobby protested forcefully. "How could someone have deleted it again? We were gone for an hour and a half max!"
"What?" Pyro demanded. "It's gone? Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure," snapped Bobby, but he ran another search anyway. Again, it returned zero results. Bobby looked ready to freeze the laptop, but he instead slammed the lid shut and shoved it under his bed, directly under his pillow, where he had been keeping it.
"Now what?" Jubilee asked angrily. "We were this close to finishing it! What, do we start over?"
"No," Pyro announced firmly. "At least, that's not all we do. We're going to find out whoever's doing this and we're going to make them regret it. Then we start over." This idea was approved by the other two, perhaps a bit viciously.
Bobby pulled out an old-fashioned notepad and pen and they set about planning revenge. First of all, they had to decide who to take revenge on.
"Well, Cyclops is the most obvious person," Jubilee mused, snapping her gum. "But Nightcrawler has a good motive, too. I guess pretty much anyone who would want to bust the prank for any reason could have deleted it."
Bobby shook his head, though he wrote down the names "Cyclops" and "Nightcrawler". At least, that's what his scribbles vaguely resembled.
"I told you before, only Storm and you two know I have the laptop," he corrected. "Of course, she could have told someone, but why? And anyway, whoever it is would have to know about the prank and the laptop."
A long pause met his words, finally broken by John. "None of the students have both a motive and opportunity. At least, not obviously. So we've got Cyclops, Nightcrawler, and Storm."
Bobby scribbled down what may have been "Storm" on his notepad, and they set about plotting.
Scott Summers stepped into the elevator alone. He thought about nothing, a nice change, as it descended to the "C" garage. The C stood for Cyclops: It was his personal garage. Fourteen cars were currently housed in it; five were from dealerships, unmodified, and the other nine he himself had built on to various degrees. Right now he was going on an early-morning ride in his new Ferrari. Exiting the elevator, he flipped on the lights and surveyed his cars contentedly. The other cars blocked his view of his prize until he was just a few feet from it. But when he did see his Ferrari, he stopped dead in shock. It had been painted a wonderful deep blue color – "had" being the key word. Now it was a hot pink, bright yellow, and sickly lime green swirl, almost tye-dye, pattern.
Cyclops just stared at his car. Bits of blue could still be seen under the sloppy paint job, but it would either have to be repainted or the new layer of paint pain-stakingly scraped off if he had any hope of making his Ferrari presentable. A low moan escaped Scott's lips.
Ororo Munroe, aka Storm, rose from bed blearily. She hadn't gotten enough sleep that night, so it took her a few seconds to realize something was different about her room and a few more to notice what: All her plants were gone! Before, every space that would have been bare (with only a partial exception of the floor) had been covered in green things. Now, there wasn't a scrap of green left in her room anywhere. No, wait – there was, literally a scrap. It was a piece of paper, a note.
Storm stared at the short message. "Miss the garden? Check the attic." She shoved some clothes on and stomped off to the attic. The entry door to the most cluttered area of the mansion (despite Cyclops' attempts to make the students clean it up) was at the other side of the school, in a barely-used classroom. When she reached it and pulled down the ladder she clambered up it without hesitation.
It took her a full half-hour to locate one small plant. The "weather witch" would have kept searching, but there was another note attached to a flower: "3rd story bathroom". Fuming, Ororo stalked off to the women's bathroom of the third floor. But a complete, time-consuming search revealed nothing. Poor Storm stared at the second note in bewilderment, wondering what she'd missed. A second later she gasped. The note didn't specify which bathroom. She had assumed the women's for obvious reasons, but…
Ororo hesitated, wondering how to go about this. Finally she decided to keep it simple. Still inside the otherwise empty women's bathroom, she concentrated on making the boys' bathroom extremely cold. Within seconds someone yelped and she heard the sound of retreating feet. When all was silent, Storm, nervously looking around her, crept into the boys' bathroom. Sure enough, a plant was actually taped to one of the corners where the wall met ceiling. Somehow or another it was positioned such that a wrong push would send it toppling from its current upright position.
After much undignified jumping, Ororo finally managed to reach her precious plant, complete with a note.
And so it went. Storm had around fifty plants of varying sizes that she'd kept in her room, and they were all hidden separately, in the most ridiculous places. She was seen by practically all of the students literally running around the school and grounds, clothes dirty and ripped and hair an utter mess, arms full of plants. Several of the students even managed to get pictures.
For Ororo, it was approaching an obsession. The usually serene woman absolutely had to rescue all her poor plants, even if it meant skipping her classes. Her plants were her most prized possessions and someone had stolen them and put them in potentially dangerous situations. If she had come across that person then, they would have been lucky to get away from the livid (and partially crazy) teacher with a whole skin.
The school's only blue German mutant woke slowly. He'd had an exhausting day yesterday, most of it spent in the Danger Room. As he rose from bed he glanced around his room. It wasn't really plain, but it lacked many of the things bedrooms usually had. For instance, the only picture of someone the room's occupant actually knew was a poster of himself, "The Incredible Nightcrawler", from the circus. No other mementos could be seen. It didn't have a mirror, either, though not all bedrooms did. Kurt didn't really care about his appearance; he could tell if he was completely disheveled without a mirror, and he wasn't going to stare at his reflection, putting the last strand of hair in its place, anyway.
Another bang on his door reminded Kurt Wagner what had woken him in the first place. He threw on some clothes and quickly opened the door. Wolverine stepped in immediately, giving Nightcrawler a rather exasperated look. "Reall—" then cut off, staring at Kurt's head.
The other mutant frowned slightly. "What is wrong, mein freund?" he asked, German accent thick.
"What the heck did you do to yourself, Elf?" Logan demanded in disbelief, still gaping.
Kurt was getting nervous now. "What do you mean? I have not done anything." Everything felt normal; well, the sides of his head were a bit cooler than the rest of his head, but surely that wasn't anything to worry about, and he certainly hadn't caused it in any way.
"Oh yes you have. Unless someone else did it for you." Seeing that Nightcrawler still didn't understand, he added, "Feel your hair."
Dreading what he would find, Kurt slowly raised a hand to his hair. He visibly paled upon feeling lines of bare skin on either side of a stiff crest of hair: A Mohawk.
"It gets worse," Logan informed him, now having difficulty keeping a straight face. "It's dyed hot pink."
The look on Nightcrawler's face was the picture of mortification. He dove for his dresser, snatching a hat, (he didn't usually wear anything on his head, but he had held on to one hat, a gift from a friend in the circus), and teleported out of the room, leaving Logan to his chuckles.
Reappearing in the nearest bathroom, Kurt gave a boy he didn't recognize a shock. The boy got over it quickly, though, and began to laugh at the other's hair.
"Out!" Kurt ordered, and the boy stopped laughing, surprised by the sharpness of Kurt's voice. Shrugging, he left.
Nightcrawler slowly approached one of the mirrors. He nearly fainted upon seeing his reflection. Logan had been telling the exact truth: Instead of dark blue and curly hair, he had a bright pink Mohawk. Of course, that meant his remaining hair had been straightened. Doubtfully, Kurt poked at his hair, pulling back his finger quickly, as though it might bite. It was incredibly stiff, obviously completely full of some sort of gel or hairspray. Probably both.
Unfortunately, whatever it was didn't wash out, even when he tried to soak his hair in a sink full of soapy water. A horrible thought occurred to him: What if his hair was "styled" with some sort of glue? And he now realized that since the dye hadn't come out when he had soaked his Mohawk, it couldn't be that wash-out stuff.
Leaning back against a wall, the previously blue, now blue-and-pink mutant closed his eyes, a small smile forming on his lips as he ruefully admired the prankster who had done this. It looked as though he'd be having a hot pink Mohawk for a while.
Bobby, John, and Jubilee sat on Bobby's bed, gloating over three pictures. It hadn't been easy, but they had managed to take a picture of all three of their victims. The first was of Cyclops staring at his car, aghast. That had been the hardest to take, since his garage was usually empty and any movement or sound would have been out-of-place. The next was of Storm frenziedly running around the grounds, looking the opposite of her usual calm cleanness. The last was in the boys' bathroom, where Nightcrawler had forgotten to check behind a bend in the wall. There, Bobby had taken a picture of Kurt gaping at his hair.
"Not a bad night's work, if I do say so myself," Jubilee announced smugly, carefully putting the pictures away. They were all tired from spending several hours of sleeping time preparing their pranks, but they were definitely happy. Jubilee would still liked to have dyed Nightcrawler's hair yellow, but Bobby and John had overruled her, saying it would have gone too well with his eyes.
They had originally been planning to find the person responsible for deleting their files and making it clear the prank the three played on him/her was revenge, but they hadn't been able to decide who had deleted their things in the first place. Instead, they just played pranks on the three most likely, but remained anonymous, so the two that hadn't been involved wouldn't know about The Ultimate Prank.
Besides which, anonymousness meant they couldn't be punished. Once she collected all her plants and had a bit of time to cool down, Storm was no longer beside herself in rage, but she still wasn't happy. Cyclops, on the other hand, had ranted at Professor X for half-an-hour (they could hear through the office door), before he was practically kicked out of Xavier's office. If Scott Summers ever found who had painted his car, he would give a whole new meaning to the words "looks can kill". And Nightcrawler…He was actually laughing about his hair, something no one had really expected.
It was now noon of the same day, and the three were on lunch break. They were again working on The Ultimate Prank (now that they knew where Cyclops kept them – though Jubilee had been surprised he hadn't moved them after the bedroom fiasco – it had been simple to snag his disk again to make a copy of it), and, now that they'd all done it before (and Bobby twice), it was going quickly. By the time lunch break was over they had nearly reached the half-way point.
After school, when they should have been doing homework, they worked on it more. "So, why are we thinking this won't just get erased again?" Jubilee asked abruptly. Bobby still hadn't talked Kitty into giving him a blank disk, (she, smart as she was, had guessed he wasn't telling the complete truth when he had said it was to help him speed up his homework), though he repeatedly told the other two he would have one in time. Neither Jubilee nor John could risk trying to find a disk themselves – it'd be too suspicious, and word would undoubtedly get to a teacher.
"I'm going to stay here and keep watch," Pyro replied. "Anyone that tries to delete anything will regret it." He flicked open his lighter to demonstrate the point.
They finally finished about the same time they'd taken a TV break yesterday. Bobby again put the laptop in its usual place, directly under his pillow. Jubilee and Bobby set off to watch their show, leaving Pyro alone.
John Allerdyce sighed, stretching. It had only been five minutes since the other two had left, but he was bored already. Did Bobby really expect him to stare at the laptop's "storage space" for an hour? Pyro rose and grabbed a comic book, which he quickly became absorbed in. After fifteen minutes or so the thrill wore off and he became bored of that, too, so he decided to amuse himself by messing around on the laptop.
Pulling it out, John supposed he might as well try to make some progress on their prank documents. He suddenly paled, realizing he couldn't find the documents where they should have been.
"What the…" he whispered, shocked. When he ran yet another search, it returned nothing. His scream of frustration and rage could be heard through most of the mansion.
Katherine "Kitty" Pryde sighed, looking at the clock. It was 4:28, and the TV show started at 4:30. This was the third day in a row she had become engrossed in a book and lost track of time. She did the same as she had yesterday and the day before, following the shortcut she had devised. Technically she shouldn't be doing this, but…
Her shortcut consisted of making a straight line from her room to the rec. room. She stayed in public places, with the one exception of Bobby and John's room, but they regularly watched the show, too, so they shouldn't be there.
Phasing through walls, furniture, and whatever else was in her way, she reached the boys' room without incident, as expected. She was surprised to see Pyro staring at a comic book, but she kept running, and he was paying so little attention to everything not in his comic book that he didn't see or hear her. As she had the last two days, she ran through the room, straight through the head of Bobby's bed, phasing through the pillow, bed, and everything underneath it.