The Acolyte Trail
Piotr was calmly seated in a chair in the recreation room while drawing in his sketchbook. While he was enjoying the rare luxury of peace and quiet, it was the recent wild activities with his teammates which had inspired his latest sketches. Hmmm, now what exactly was Pyro's expression when he crashed that boat into the store? Piotr thought as he made a few more experimental strokes with his pencil. Was it a happy-go-lucky-this-is-going-to-be-fun kind of insane or was it more of a crazy-cheerful-let's-go-set-everything-on-fire-after-this kind of insane?
"Look there! Blue Mountains dead ahead!"
"Huh?" Piotr blinked as Remy and Pyro rode into the room on top of what appeared to be a thick, queen-sized mattress placed on top of a large modified box spring. The box spring had been outfitted with a pair of big, makeshift wheels on either side and the whole setup was being pulled along by a couple of blue, electric walk-behind floor scrubbers.
"Whoa, bullocks, whoa!" Pyro shouted as the strange contraption came to a halt. Pyro smiled and waved at a fairly shocked Piotr. "Howdy there, mate! You look like the last survivor of your traveling party. Did somebody bushwhack you along the track?"
"What?" Piotr gaped and tried to make sense of the scene. "What...what is all this?"
"This here is our prairie wagon," Remy said proudly sitting in the front. "And we are a party of bold pioneers out traveling the Oregon Trail!"
"You are following a path made by large, keyboard musical instruments?" Piotr blinked in confusion.
"Not the Organ Trail," Remy told him. "The Oregon Trail."
"Okay," Piotr said slowly. "What is the Oregon Trail?"
"Sorry. Can't stop to talk. Time's a wastin'," Pyro waved him off. "We gotta pick up the pace or we'll end up spending the winter in the mountains."
"Climb aboard homme," Remy jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "We'll make some room and take you along with us."
"Um, are you sure?" Piotr looked at the homemade 'wagon' hesitantly. Several large boxes sat crowded in the back. "This setup does not look very safe. What if something breaks?"
"Don't worry, we can always trade for spare parts," Pyro smiled. "And we can stop and try to fix things ourselves. Course our chances of making repairs would be even better if someone had decided to be a carpenter!"
"For the last time, I'm not going to be the carpenter!" Remy snapped. "I'm a thief! Besides, you chose to be a blacksmith so we should be just fine!"
"Oh, right," Pyro remembered. "So, what do you say Colossus? Do you dare to risk traveling the trail with us? It's full of horrors: snakes, blizzards, fog, drownings!"
"Well..." Piotr began.
"Yay!" Pyro cheered and grabbed Piotr's arm. "I knew you'd join us! Fire up the yoke of bullocks and let's go!"
"What?" Piotr blinked as he let himself be hauled on board. "But I did not say..."
"Great! Let's hit the trail!" Remy pressed a control box which was connected to the two floor scrubbers via a long wire. The two 'oxen' moved forward and pulled the makeshift wagon out of the room. "Yeeehaaaaaa!"
"Oh dear," Piotr sighed resignedly as he sat in the middle of the mattress. "So where exactly are we going?"
"Why to Oregon of course," Pyro said as the three Acolytes rode down the hallway. "Over the mountains, down the river and straight to the Willamette Valley."
"What is in the Willamette Valley?" Piotr asked.
"I don't know," Pyro shrugged. "I never bothered to stop and read the guidebook."
"Okay," Piotr blinked, confused.
"The Willamette Valley contains miles of some of the most fertile soil on Earth," Remy explained as he steered. "It's located in the north-western part of Oregon near the Pacific Coast."
"Really?" Piotr raised an eyebrow in interest. "How do you know so much about it?"
"My family and I were there a few years ago," Remy smirked dropping his pioneer persona. "We came back after 'acquiring' a few thousand bottles of rare and expensive wines. For business purposes of course."
"Of course," Piotr groaned. "Wait, the Oregon Trailis an American element?"
"It's part of American History, yeah," Remy confirmed.
"Then how does Pyro know about it?" Piotr asked.
"He must have attended computer day in grade school at some point," Remy shrugged.
"Oh boy!" Pyro giggled still caught up in his imagination. "Ain't this great Colossus? The lot of us being out on the track. Just you, me, Gambit and Bob."
"Bob?" Piotr blinked.
"Yep," Pyro held up a small plastic bag filled with ashes. The name "BOB" had been written on it in large letters. "Poor, poor Bob. He got struck by cholera and died of dysentery. We cremated him and packed out his ashes to spread in the wind."
"Um," Piotr began to shift uncomfortably.
"Don't worry homme," Remy whispered to him confidentially. "It's just what was left in the crumb tray after Pyro cleaned out the toaster oven."
"Ah," Piotr nodded in relief.
"I recorded the epitaph we were going to leave on poor Bob's tombstone in our trail journal," Pyro set down the plastic bag and pulled out a notebook. He flipped to the appropriate page. "Here lies Bob. Two shoes and a wooden leg for sale."
"You keep a trail journal?" Piotr asked, surprised.
"Sure do," Pyro said cheerfully. "I've recorded everything that has happened to us so far. Want to see it?"
"Alright," Piotr shrugged as Pyro handed him the notebook. He glanced at some of the entries. "Day 1, 1848. Gambit pinched 4500 dollars from several different bankers. We knocked a wagon together and set out on the track after taking everything in the local General Store. O-kay..."
"Tied up the old shopkeep and hung him from the ceiling before we left too," Remy grinned steering the 'wagon' around a corner.
"Came across an abandoned wagon and set fire to it," Piotr continued to read the journal. "Found some wild fruit and set fire to it. Arrived at Fort Kearny, took all the supplies and painted the fort purple before setting fire to it."
"Picked up a few other fun things while we were at it," Pyro smiled and patted one of the large boxes.
"Arrived at Green River Crossing," Piotr read on. "Spent five dollars taking the ferry. Once across we burned the ferry and got our five dollars back. I am beginning to see a pattern here..."
"Yeah, I knew you'd like the little flaming wagon wheels I drew in all the margins," Pyro chirped as he excitedly flipped through the pages. "A pattern of flaming wagon axles starts after the entry where we had a drag race down Independence Rock and...SQUIRREL!"
"Huh?" Piotr blinked looking around. "Where?"
"There!" Pyro pointed at the section of hallway which had been decorated with large cardboard cutouts of various different animals. "Stop the wagon!"
"Alright!" Remy did so with a grin. He pulled out some cards and charged them. "Hunting time!"
"Yeah!" Pyro cackled as he whipped out his lighter and began to shoot flames at the cardboard animals.
WHOOOSSSHHH!
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
"Yikes!" Piotr yelped and covered his head as flames and charged cards flew all over the hallway.
"Okay, that's enough!" Remy shouted brushing off his clothes.
"How many did we get?" Pyro asked
"Looks like three bison, two elk, a deer, five pronghorns and twenty seven squirrels," Remy reported.
"Great! That's about sixteen hundred pounds of meat," Pyro did a quick calculation and checked how much lighter fluid he had used. "And I only used up the equivalent of thirty nine bullets!"
"That's great. But we can only fit fifty four more pounds in the wagon," Remy told him.
"Awww," Pyro pouted.
"Are the explosions finally over?" Piotr asked uncovering his head.
"Yeah, we're heading out again," Remy said as Pyro folded up the smoking remains of a cardboard deer and tossed it in the wagon. "If we continue to stay in this area any longer game will become scarce."
"I am surprised you have managed to go on at this for so long without being yelled at," Piotr commented as the 'wagon' started off once again. "Has Magneto or Sabertooth said anything about it?"
"Nope. We haven't seen anyone but you since we set out on the track," Pyro shook his head. "They probably don't have what it takes to survive out here anyway."
"Yeah. I can just imagine some of the journal entries if they were to come along with us," Remy chuckled. "Sabertooth got bitten by a rattlesnake. The rattlesnake died moments afterward and Sabertooth ate the snake."
"Lost the trail for one day. Used Magneto as a compass and found it again easily," Pyro giggled.
"Sabertooth killed 1236 pounds of meat using his bare hands," Remy snickered. "He ate twenty pounds and brought the remaining 1216 pounds of meat back."
"Sabertooth got shot while hunting. Later came across four crude tombstones and an abandoned wagon fully stocked!" Pyro hooted.
"Magneto caught cholera. Stopped for four days to see if he'd die and have an excuse to throw a party!" Remy laughed.
"Hahahahaha!" Pyro cackled. "Come on Colossus! It's your turn to say one."
"Um," Piotr tried to think of a plausible journal entry. "One of the oxen died. Gained 180 pounds of food."
"No, no, no!" Pyro scolded him. "It's gotta be funny like this: Arrived at the Blue River Crossing. The river was only nine feet deep so Colossus carried the wagon across and we beat up the ferry owner for trying to con us out of five dollars."
"Traded 318 bullets to another wagon party for one wagon wheel," Remy gave another example. "Later caught up with them and stole the 318 bullets back."
"Good one," Pyro giggled. "Got a broken wagon tongue. Gambit managed to fix it by giving it CPR."
"Pyro set fire to wagon," Remy gave him a dirty look. "We lost forty pounds of food, one wagon axle and all the hair on Magneto's head. We rested for two days and spent most of it beating Pyro to a pulp."
"Arrived at Snake River Crossing," Pyro shot back. "Caulked the wagon, floated it and used the rest to caulk Gambit's mouth shut before dumping him in the river."
"Dumping, good idea!" Remy reached back and gave Pyro a shove.
"Ow!" Pyro yelped and he fell out and hit the floor. "Hey, come back!" He got up and ran after the still moving 'wagon'.
"Pyro fell out of the wagon and got lost," Remy wrote in the dropped notebook. "Three days later he unfortunately came back!"
"Oh yeah? Give me that!" Pyro snapped as he scrabbled back into the 'wagon' and grabbed the notebook back. He proceeded to scribble furiously. "A thief stole six sets of clothes. We only have two sets of clothes left so Gambit volunteered to continue the trip naked!"
"What?" Remy spun around and tackled Pyro to the mattress.
"Hey, watch it!" Piotr yelped as tried to get out of the way. He picked up the control box to the floor scrubbers and looked at in confusion. "How do you use this thing?"
Remy and Pyro ignored him as they fought to write new journal entries in the notebook. "Pyro has a broken arm," Remy snarled. "If he continues to cause trouble I'll break his other arm and both his legs!"
"Traded Gambit to an all-woman wagon party for one defective bullet," Pyro snapped back. "The women took one look at him and traded him right back!"
"DIE!" Remy screamed as the two of them continued to roll around in the 'wagon'.
"Would you please stop fighting and help me with this? I can not steer!" Piotr shouted as they headed towards a wall. "Oh no! Brace yourselves!"
CRASH!
CRUNCH!
"Ow!" Remy yelped as he rolled into Piotr and released his grip on Pyro. "Oooh, my kidneys."
"Oh no!" Pyro blinked at the crumpled remains of the two electric floor scrubbers. "Both of our bullocks have died!"
"No problem," Remy unhooked the wrecked floor scrubbers from the 'wagon', his fight with Pyro quickly forgotten. "We'll start heading down the Columbia River from here. Prepare for rafting!"
"Huh?" Piotr blinked, confused. "How do plan to go rafting around here?"
"Like this," Pyro broke open the large boxes in the back and revealed a pair of sleek, compact rocket engines. "With these babies powering us we'll feel like we're shooting the rapids for real!"
"Oh no," Piotr groaned.
"Oh yeah!" Remy smiled bracing himself in his seat. "Ready?"
"Ready!" Pyro quickly finished attaching the engines to the 'wagon' and eagerly fired them up. "Let's go!"
BRRROOOHHHHHHWWWWWW!
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" Piotr yelled as the 'wagon' took off like a shot down the hallway.
"WAHOOOOOO!" Pyro laughed maniacally as the 'wagon' caromed off the walls and shook around violently.
"YEAH!" Remy shouted as he abandoned all pretense of steering and clung tightly to the mattress. "WATERFALL AHEAD! HANG ON!"
"WHAT?" Piotr yelped. "AAAGGGHHHHHH!"
Meanwhile, in a not-too-distant hallway...
"Where are those idiots?" Magneto grumbled as he angrily walked and looked about.
"I don't know," Sabertooth growled following slightly behind him. "But I'm pretty sure I heard something going on in one of the storage rooms a while ago."
"I tell you those fools are going to pay for their inane, childish antics this time," Magneto muttered dangerously. "Setting fire to all the spheres in the Sphere Hangar is bad enough, but painting the entire Control Room purple is just plain lunacy! Not to mention putting up those crude animal cutouts everywhere you look!"
"Whatever," Sabertooth grunted somewhat offhandedly. "Though that strung-up plastic dummy we found in one of the storage rooms was kinda funny...wait. Do you hear something?"
"What?" Magneto stopped and paused for a fatal moment.
"LOOK OUT! ROCKS AHEAD!"
CRASH!
SMASH!
CRUNCH!
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" Piotr yelled as the three Acolytes and their rocket propelled 'wagon' ran over the two figures and quickly flew out of sight.
"Ohhhhhh," Magneto groaned as he and Sabertooth lay flat out on the floor.
"That...hurt," Sabertooth whimpered with several freshly made wheel tracks imprinted on his face. "Ooooooh, I think I broke my leg."
"Now I know what the most hazardous journey someone can undertake is," Magneto moaned. "Trying to spend any amount of time around here!"
Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men: Evolution or any variations of The Oregon Trail.