Boom Boom blew up the disclaimer telling you that I do not own the X-men Evolution characters! Shame on you Tabitha! Well so how did the gang get along without Lance, even if it was only less than a week? (I counted 3 days, but I could be wrong.) Well this story takes place on the day they had that little confrontation in the halls and Lance told them he was gonna be an X-Man.

Life Without Lance

"Look at him," Todd was livid. "Look at him! Sitting with his precious Kitty Kat and those junior members of the Geek squad!" He and the remaining members of the Brotherhood were glaring at Lance sitting with Kitty and some of the newer members of the X-Men at the table. They sat at their own table fuming.

"I can't believe Lance ditched us to chase after that stupid X-Geek!" Pietro snapped.

"Guys are so stupid," Tabitha said. "They'd do anything to impress a girl. Trust me, I know from experience. Once a guy's hooked on a girl, all his free will is sucked out of him. She can make him do anything!"

"Is that true?" Todd's eyes widened.

"I got Blue to break rules and curfew didn't I?" Tabitha said smugly.

"I can't believe I looked up to him!" Fred grumbled for the thirteenth time that hour. "First Mystique and Magneto and now him!"

"Yeah what is this? National "Dump the Brotherhood Year?" Todd snapped.

"Yeah he's such a jerk…he…I told myself I was not going to cry!" Fred sniffed angrily. "WAHHHHH!"

"Here," Todd handed Fred a tissue. He blew his nose loudly into it. "Get over it Freddy!"

"He's not gonna be gone long anyway," Tabitha told him. "Just long enough to get under the Geek Squad's skin before they kick him out!"

"Yeah and then he's gotta beg us before we let him back in!" Todd snapped. "Beg! Beg! I tell ya! Ha!"

"Cool it you jerks!" Pietro snapped. "I've had it with everyone ditching us! It's time we took some serious action!"

"Yeah let's teach Lance a lesson he and his Precious Kitty will never forget!" Todd started to hop towards them, but Pietro grabbed him and forced him to sit down.

"Pipe down you idiot!" Pietro told him. "If we do anything to Lance or Kitty he'll never come back!"

"So what? We're just gonna stand around here and let them get away with it?" Todd questioned.

"I didn't say that," Pietro said slyly. "Those two may be out of it, but for the rest of the X-Geeks, it's open season!"

The rest of the day was a lot of fun for the Brotherhood. Tabitha blew open several lockers of the X-men and Todd slimed them. Fred and Pietro shot several spitballs at other X-men in their classes. But that wasn't much but minor petty annoyances. So certain members decided to up the stakes a little.

"Okay here he comes," Tabitha whispered to Pietro at sixth period. They were outside the school after noticing a certain X-man had cut class again. "Get the spray can ready!"

Evan zipped along on his skateboard. Little did he notice a small energy bomb had landed right in his path. The minor explosion blinded him and sent him flying into the trash can. "Well well," Pietro smirked as he zipped up to him. "Cutting class again eh Evan? Figures I'd find you in the one place where you belong."

"Pietro!" Evan snapped. He started to produce spikes in his arms.

"Hold this a minute will ya?" Pietro shoved a can of spray paint into Evan's hands. He grabbed Tabitha. "Bye!" He zipped her out of sight.

"DANIELS!"

Evan saw a very angry Principal Kelly storm up to him. "Uh hi Principal Kelly," Evan had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"You are in big trouble young man! Look at what you did!" He grabbed Evan by the shirt and pointed to the parking lot. Evan could not believe it. On one car in black spray paint were several slogans: KELLY IS A WIENER! LOSER! HA! HA! KELLY DROOLS! KELLY IS MADE OF JELLY! It was the same color spray paint Evan was holding. "I don't suppose you know anything about this?"

"I think I have a pretty good idea…" Evan muttered as he thought evil thoughts about Pietro.

Meanwhile two other members of the Brotherhood were sneaking into the girl's locker room. "Uh should we really be doing this?" Fred asked.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Todd snapped. "Chickening out? This is for Lance's own good! You want him back or not?"

"Well yeah…" Fred said. "But isn't this kinda mean. Even for us?"

"Well, let's see," Todd rolled his eyes. "Does this sound familiar? 'I can't split a soda with you Fred, I have responsibilities.'"

"You get the stuff ready and I'll set up the camera!" Fred said.

A few minutes later a loud explosion was heard from the inside of the girl's locker room. "AGGGHH!" Jean ran out of the locker in her gym clothes. She was covered in honey and feathers.

Todd snickered as he secretly took pictures with his camera. "I'm glad we swiped two cameras! One for inside and one out! I wonder how much we can get for these?"

"I got at least a dozen customers lined up already!" Fred smirked. "I say we charge 5 bucks a picture!"

At the end of school Lance was walking with Kitty. Scott, Jean, Rogue and Kurt stormed up to them. "ALVERS!" Scott snarled. "It's bad enough that you trashed my car, did you have to trash my locker too?"

"What are you talking about Summers?" Lance snapped.

"Your loser friends have been bugging us all day that's what!" Rogue snapped.

"And how's that my fault?" Lance said.

"Oh come off it Lance," Jean snapped. "It's the same stupid tricks that you pulled when you were hanging out with the Brotherhood! Slime in the lockers, spitballs…"

"What happened to your hair?" Kitty asked. "Is that a feather in it?"

"I don't want to talk about it," Jean fumed crossing her arms.

"Hey I didn't tell them to do anything!" Lance said. "They're just getting back at me for joining you guys!"

"Yeah well I notice that they didn't do anything to you!" Scott snapped.

"Well they didn't do anything to me either," Kitty said.

"Hmm, I wonder why?" Rogue said sarcastically.

Over in the bushes Todd and Pietro snickered quietly so that they wouldn't be heard. When Lance and the X-men moved away they revealed themselves and gave each other high fives. "Yes!" Todd crowed.

"Phase one is complete," Pietro snickered. "No way those geeks will ever trust him now after today!"

"What now Quickie?" Todd asked.

"We go home and plot Phase two!" Pietro smiled.

That afternoon Pietro strode into the kitchen dressed in a military uniform. "Troops!" He shouted in what he thought was his military voice. "Today we have faced the enemy and fought them to a standstill. We won several important battles, but not the war! But we will continue to fight! We will fight on the beaches! We will fight in the trenches! We will fight in the cafeteria! We will fight in homeroom! We will fight…"

"Well let's get on with it then!" Fred snapped. "I hate it when he thinks he pretends he's General Patton or something!"

"Yeah enough with the Speeches Speedy!" Tabitha said. "What's the plan?"

"The plan is perfection itself in its simplicity," Pietro smiled. "But first! We have to review the data. Starting with Exhibit A!" He pulled out a picture of the Brotherhood members. "This is us. Now Exhibit B!" He pulled out another picture with Lance cut out. "What's missing? Lance! And why? Exhibit C!" He pulled out a picture of Kitty. "Right! Now…"

Fred rolled his eyes and pulled out a candy bar. "We're not going anywhere for a long, long while."

Four hours later…

"Exhibit Y 42!" Pietro pulled out another chart, one of dozens that were now littering the floor. "The moon is in the seventh house! Jupiter is aligned with Mars! Do you know what that means? People?"

"Okay Tabby I'll trade you a Rapidash for a Meowth," Todd said fiddling with his game boy.

"Cool," Tabitha nodded. Fred was snoring.

"PAY ATTENTION TO ME!" Pietro screamed.

Fred woke up. "Huh? Did you say something Pietro?"

"Apparently not," Pietro hung his head down.

"Have you finished acting nuts yet?" Tabitha asked.

"By the looks of it I think he's got most of it out of his system." Todd remarked. "Just tell us the plan already! I could have slimed the entire X-Jerk's mansion twice by now."

"Fine, if you people want to ignore the complexities of the situation," Pietro threw the charts away. "This is the plan…"

"Finally," Todd shifted in his seat.

"What we are going to do is through a series of short descriptive vignettes using our communication device to irritate and arouse the anger and wrath of the X-Geeks!" Pietro said. "This will drive them into a frenzy and possibly target Lance who may or may not be finally ejected from the mansion."

"You are going to make prank phone calls to annoy the X-Geeks," Todd stated simply.

"Well yes," Pietro shrugged.

"Why didn't you just say that four stupid hours ago?" Tabitha shouted.

"But I had all these charts," Pietro widened his eyes and pouted.

"See this is why we need to get Lance back yo," Todd shook his head. "To rein him in and keep his insanity under some kind of control!"

"Toad," Pietro said going to the phone. "BBBPPPTTTTHHHHH!" He blew a raspberry at him and picked up the line.

At that moment across town several of the younger recruits were having a joyride with the X-Van. Unfortunately they set a telephone pole on fire and it burned to the ground.

Back at the Brotherhood house…

"I can't believe this!" Pietro fumed. "The phone's dead! Something must be wrong with the line!"

"Well it was a stupid plan anyway," Todd said.

"No it wasn't!" Pietro snapped.

"Was too!" Todd snapped.

"Was not!"

"Was too!"

"Was not!"

"Was too!"

"As much as I'd love to stay here and listen to this fascinating debate," Tabitha yawned. "I'm tired and I'm going to bed." She went up to her room.

"Was not!" Pietro snapped.

"Was too!" Todd retorted.

"Uh uh!" Pietro pouted.

"Yah huh!" Todd hissed.

"Lance come home!" Fred rolled his eyes. "Oh I miss him so much! How could he dump us for that …Oh! Hey! Emeril's on!" He looked at the clock. "Cool! TV time!"

"Yah huh!" Todd squirmed in the headlock Pietro had him in.

"Uh uh!" Pietro snapped as he tried to break free of Todd's grasp of his neck. "YUCK!" He screamed as Todd slimed him. "NO TONGUE! NO FAIR! That's it! Die!"

"All right!" Fred shouted as he watched the television, completely oblivious to Todd and Pietro rolling around on the floor trying to kill each other. "Let's kick it up a notch!"