DISCLAIMER: I don't own X-Men Evolution.
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At the ice skating arena, (which was actually a huge lake frozen over in the middle of Bayville)...
"Aagghh!!!" THUD "Oww."
"So, that leaves the score at ICE-11 and Lance-0."
"Yeah, that's like his 7th wipeout yo, and we've only been here fifteen minutes!"
Toad and Pietro snickered at Lance's attempts at ice skating. The poor guy got up for like the eighth time, completely sore and pink in the face. He stumbled over to his laughing friends.
"When is this nightmare gonna be over?" he asked, groaning.
"Oh, I think we'll be here a while yet," Pietro said, grinning, "If only to see you make a complete fool out of yourself again, and again, and again, and ag-"
"Oh yeah? Then you try it hotshot! I don't see you out there skating! And the only reason I came is because I was threatened by a certain homicidal Scarlet B that we have to live with!" Lance shot back, his temper getting the better of him.
Pietro shot up and grabbed the front of Lance's jacket in a split second. "Watch it Alvers; that's my sister you're talking about," Pietro threatened, his eyes growing dark with anger.
Lance shook away from Pietro and sneered, "Yeah sure, the same sister that's-"
"Right here, yo," interrupted Todd loudly, glad to break up a potential fight. "Hi snookums!" he said brightly to Wanda, who had just stepped onto the ice next to them.
Wanda glared at him, "Call me that again and I'll make that horrible tongue of yours stick to the ice."
Toad gulped. "I, uh, think I'll go see how Freddy's doing," he said as he took off as fast as he could. Actually, Fred was doing quite well. To everyone's utter amazement, Fred had simply glided out onto the ice with an ease that seemed to defy gravity, considering his size. The ice didn't crack under him either, which was a mystery within itself. He could skate pretty well too; it was obvious he'd had practice before.
Wanda turned to her brother. "All right, I'm here. Let's get this over with."
Pietro looked at his twin, puzzled. "Get what over with?"
Wanda raised an eyebrow and looked at Pietro coldly. "I seem to remember you challenging me at the Manor, and I'm taking you up on it."
Lance whooped. "All right! You're gonna duke it out on the ice with Wanda? Man, you are so toast!"
Pietro glared at his friend, and then shifted his gaze back to his sister.
"Um, sure Wand. But just out of curiosity, have you ever, um, skated before?"
"No. Have you?" she asked.
Pietro looked at her as if this was a new thought to him. "No," he said, sounding surprised, "Guess I haven't."
Then he grinned cockily, "But that won't be a problem, I'm a fast learner, remember?"
Wanda rolled her eyes. Just then, Fred and Todd came skating back to them quickly.
"We got company yo!" Toad said.
They all looked to where he was pointing, and stared in disbelief.
"Can we go nowhere without them showing up?"
Coming out of a minivan were Scott Summers, Jean Grey, Rogue, Evan, Kurt, and
"KITTY?! Kitty's here!" Lance cried in shock. "Oh shit, hide me, somebody! I can't have her see me on the ice! What if I make a fool out of myself?!"
"What if?" Pietro repeated mockingly. "Too late for that Lance; so far, your butt's been on the ice more than your feet."
By now, the 'X-Freaks' had spotted them and were heading their way, cold expressions on their faces, with the exception of Kitty and Evan. Kitty was grinning at Lance, and Evan looked like he wanted to be there just as much as Lance did. He was shivering under about 50 layers of clothing and staring at his feet, mumbling to himself. However, as they got closer, he spotted Pietro, and his face lit up for a split second at seeing his rival here, and then he smirked as he prepared to deal with him.
"Alvers," Scott said coldly upon seeing Lance.
"Summers," Lance said, sneering slightly.
There was a staring match for about 2 seconds, before Kitty broke the tension. "Hey Lance, like, how's it going?" Kitty asked Lance brightly, skating up to him.
Lance grinned at the petite girl. "Hey Kitty," he said, as almost everyone glared at them.
Then Jean sighed. "Look, we can all be civil here right? I mean, it is Christmas Eve after all, and it's a big lake."
"Sure Red," Todd smirked. "Why not?"
Unfortunately, no one else really heard her. By that time, the rest of the two teams were busy. Pietro and Evan had started up their usual beginning arguments, with Wanda watching, slightly curious.
Freddy, for once, decided not to see if there was any fighting and skated off on his own, happily rounding the other skaters and spinning graceful circles, causing people to gape at him. Scott was still staring disapprovingly at Lance and Kitty, and Rogue and Kurt decided to go do a few warm up laps around the lake.
Jean just shook her head and pulled Scott away from his glaring match, dragging him to another part of the lake.
-------------------------------------------
Meanwhile,
"Can not!"
"Cantoo!"
"Can not!"
"Cantoo!"
"Can not!"
"Cantoo!"
"Can not!"
"Cantoo!"
"Can not!"
"Wannabet?"
"You're on!"
Wanda looked on in slight amusement as her brother and the kid argued. She couldn't quite place him; wasn't he the one that shot spikes from his body? What was his name? Steven? No, Evan, yeah, that's right. Evan. He and her brother sure seemed to like to argue. They argued almost as well as she and Pietro used to, but not quite. No one could carry out an argument like her and her brother. When they were younger, the two had been as quick to argue as they were to share secrets. The fights were never anything too serious of course; there had been no bad blood at all between Pietro and her when they were young. They didn't agree at all on some things, but that never came between them; nothing had. Too bad things had to change...
Shaking her head from her reverie, Wanda came back to the present and took a shaky breath. It was no use to think about that now. Suddenly she noticed that the object of her musings was trying to get her attention.
"Wanda? Yoo hoo, Wanda... WANDA!!!" Pietro hollered into her face.
Wanda stumbled backwards a little, startled. "What!" she asked, regaining her composure.
"You okay? You kind of spaced out there," Pietro said, looking a little concerned.
Concerned? Wanda thought to herself. No way, why would he worry about me? More like annoyed that I wasn't paying attention to his royal highness... she thought bitterly, her expression taking on its usual evil form.
"I'm fine," she said harshly. "What do you want?"
Pietro suddenly looked a little nervous. "Well, uh," he stuttered, completely unlike his usual self. "I just made a bet with Daniels that we could beat him and one of the X-Freaks in a speed skating competition. No powers. You wanna?"
Wanda looked at her brother coldly again, even though she felt a pang of guilt when she saw his uncertainty towards her.
"No," she said.
"Oh, okay," Pietro replied, and for the entire world he appeared completely nonchalant, but she could tell he was obviously hurt, or at least disappointed.
Wanda bit her lip as she watched her brother turn and skate back towards that Daniels kid. Why the hell was she feeling so bad about how she was treating him? She hated Pietro, right? He was just like that monster she needed to kill.
Surprisingly, she had given up trying to kill her brother at the moment. At least, she told herself that revenge needed to come in a proper order, and the first person she needed to get rid of was Magneto; then she could deal with Pietro, no problem. And the only reason she was tolerating him now was so she didn't scare him away completely and have him run off to Timbuktu. She needed him here so he would be easy to find again after she was done with her Father. Right.
But then why was she feeling so damn bad about it? I mean, it wasn't like before, when they where younger and could actually feel what the other was feeling, whether it be pain, sadness, or glee. Those days were long gone.
Wanda looked up from her musings just in time to see Evan smirk. The two boys weren't far from her; well within hearing distance.
"Should have known she'd chicken out. Cowardliness must run in your family, huh Maximoff? Isn't just you then," Evan said, taunting.
It took every ounce of Wanda's limited self control to keep from blasting the whole damn town apart when hearing that comment. Pietro didn't bother restraining himself. Even before the words were completely out of Daniels' mouth, Pietro caught him with a sharp upper hook. Evan jerked back, holding his face and cursing. Some of his clothing tore as his spikes came out. Just as he looked up to deliver a counter attack, Wanda was there, up in his face, a black fire raging in her eyes, identical to Pietro's.
With a wave of her hand, the spikes forced themselves, a little painfully, back into Evan's body. She lifted Evan by the collar just like Pietro had done to Lance a little while back.
"Care to repeat that, you little shit?" Wanda hissed to Evan, as Pietro came up to her side.
Even looked up at the apparently homicidal chick in front of him and gulped. Damn, the girl was strong!
Now, even though this all happened in about 3 seconds, it was enough to bring a majority of the teams over. Scott skated up quickly with Jean in tow, as well as Lance and Kitty; with Kitty practically dragging Lance over considering he couldn't skate for shit.
Lance wobbled over to Wanda and Pietro and put a restraining hand on Wanda's shoulder, which she shrugged off angrily. Pietro seemed perfectly content to let his sister murder his rival on the spot. Scott came up cautiously with his hands held out for peace.
"Wanda, put Evan down," Scott commanded.
The glare Wanda sent him was enough to melt ice.
"Fuck off, shades," Pietro said harshly.
"Hey, come on guys, I thought we weren't going to fight this time," Jean said wearily.
Everyone looked tense. By now Rogue, Todd, and Kurt had come up too. Freddy was still skating somewhere, oblivious to all else around him.
"What's up, yo?" Todd asked as he reached them.
No one answered him; most of the X-Men were looking anxiously at Wanda and Evan. They couldn't risk an open fight here, and considering they had no idea how to beat the Scarlet Witch, it was very likely that they would lose.
Wanda, who still had Evan in her grasp, snarled at him. "You're going to pay for that remark, you Bastard." With that, she lifted up her left hand, still holding on to Evan with the right.
"Wait!" Kitty said, even though she didn't know what Evan did, if anything. "Look, Evan will just apologize, okay? Right, Evan, go on."
"Sorry," Evan said quickly, even though normally he would never have apologized to a Maximoff, at least not to Pietro. But faced with his psychotic sister, well, that was different. "I take it back, sorry," he repeated.
"Too late Daniels," Pietro sneered, and Wanda summoned her hex to finish him off.
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AN: Cliffhanger much?
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bant: You're my first reviewer for this fic! I'm so glad you liked it.
Red Witch: Oh, wow; I got a review from Red Witch! At the risk of sounding like a crazed fan, I gotta say that I love your work. I'm afraid I'm not familiar with all your stories, but most of the ones I've read cracked me up; and it's not that easy to make me laugh. Considering that I probably couldn't write humor to save my life, I have great admiration for those such as yourself who do it so well. Thanks for the review!
