Title: The All-Singing, All-Dancing Return of the Phoenix
Author: Mitsaso
E-mail: Mitsasoin.gr
Archive: I would love it if my fics could spread around and infect the world in the form of archiving! Just inform me first so that I can cackle evilly while my plan comes to a conclusion!
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the X-Men; they belong to Marvel and Stan Lee. I swear to return them back to their place once I finish playing with them. They will be unharmed, except for their poor vocal chords, who will be irreversibly overused after the end of this fic. No profit is made of this story, so please hold back the urge to sue me. However, I can still be sued about the severed vocal chord thing, in case Marvel decides to attach .wav files in their comics only to find that the X-characters can't sing anymore!
Rating: PG-13. There might be some intense language, even in the singing process.
Summary: Five years after her heroic death in the hands of Magneto, the Phoenix returns, and she's back in heat! Plus, she's got a serious inclination to singing and dancing, and the same goes for everyone else in the whole story as well! So...let the show begin! (Now that I think about it, it just seems like my very own, twisted little version of "Phoenix: Endsong")
Warnings: This story is in a musical format! Almost everyone gets to sing in this fic, and most of the songs also proceed the story by giving information and doing stuff. There are 14 songs (most of them well-known) used in this fic, and most of the songs have many of their lyrics altered to fit the story better. A few of them are untouched, though. It would add to the story if you guys had some of these songs already and listened to them during their "usage" in the fic, since you would be able to 'visualize' the whole scene. A list of the songs used is right here, placed in order of usage. But since most of them are modified to accommodate the needs of the story, there will also be the name of the modified version of the song as used in the fic. The copyrights belong to the people who created them (though it's a little difficult to name them all, so I'll name none).
6) Goldfinger - Shirley Bassey (here conveniently modified into "Coldfinger")
7) Teenage Dirtbag - Wheatus (but Jean made it "Mutant Dirtbag")
8) It's Not Unusual - Tom Jones (not really changed here)
9) Jump In The Line (Shake Senora) - Harry Belafonte (the Beast changed it into "Shake Ororo"!)
10) Dancing Queen - Abba (but just for Emma, we turned it into the "Bitching Queen")
11) Whiter Shade OF Pale - Percy Sledge (there are a few changes in the lyrics, but not the title)
12) Rasputin - Boney M (my favorite of all the songs used in this fic, here it's called "Wo-Wo-Wolverine". Nuff said.)
THE ALL-SINGING, ALL-DANCING RETURN OF THE PHOENIX
Part 2: "The All-Singing, All-Dancing Lawyer of The Phoenix"
The nightclub was almost empty at the time.
The time wasn't anywhere too early or too late for the place to be filled the customers. The reason that the nightclub barely had any customers that night was that it probably never did anyway.
The place was exactly what its' name would prepare someone to see; Shady. Dirty. Most probably unhealthy.
Not to mention that it looked like a 60's or 70's old-fashioned lounge nightclub, and the truth is that such places have no great target group nowadays.
There were a few people scattered around the place, suspicious-looking faces who belonged to decadent bodies, people who seemed like the most lowly of the underworld. The club was dark, nobody seemed to care about the current lack of live music, since the oldie songs that filled the air through the ancient speakers were certainly pre-recorded.
It was a real abnormality that this place wasn't already closed down, considering the quality of the clientele (if not the total absence of it). A certain stink suddenly reached Jean's nostrils, making her want to find the way to the basement as soon as possible.
Jean Grey (and probably ex-Summers) didn't know what made her set her foot on this place. Was it the fact that she could really use a lawyer in order to see what she could make out of this unfortunate situation with her husband? Or maybe she already considered the case of her marriage lost and she merely came down here to see again an old friend?
She had seen many weird things in her life. A whole bunch of different alien races, cosmic entities that could destroy galaxies, freaky powers on people that never asked for them, many, many weird deaths.
But nothing rang the word "weird" on her brain more at the time than the question of what could a sweet person like Bobby Drake want in a place like this? Actually working here? He suddenly was a lawyer? And why had he left the mansion and worked in the basement of such an awful nightclub?
All this place didn't seem to write "Bobby Drake" on it. Surely, Bobby himself had a whole bunch of problems the last time she was alive, with the most important one being his inability to switch back to his human form, having him stuck in an ice-sculpture mode. But how could all these lead to such a change of lifestyle? And who would trust a man-size snow-cone as his lawyer?
"Lawyer don't need to be trusted...they can't be trusted" The voice of the Phoenix wisely reminded her. But, excuse me, how did Bobby become a lawyer again? She guessed she would soon find out for herself...
Jean tried to hide her Phoenix toupee for as long as she needed in order to ask one of the unclean, dog-breathing customers where she could find the stairs to the basement. She held her breath as he opened his mouth to answer to her question and focused on where his dirty-nailed, yellow fingers pointed.
But as she began to walk over the stairs to the basement, music abruptly started playing and startled her. Jean just stood there and watched as the curtains on the stage very near to her were pulled on the sides, and a woman walked out with a mysterious pacing.
Jean noticed that the music belonged to some old James Bond-esque song, and the lady that was about to perform was Dazzler! She was dressed into a very beautiful sparkling nightgown which resembled broken shards of ice. She held an old-style microphone on her right hand and she was swinging mysteriously her other hand in the air, managing to give her song an intriguing, divesque attitude.
Jean decided to watch Ali's performance as she was really intrigued with the outcome. Why was she working there? Why did she got to sing now?
Dazzler brought her microphone close to her lips, who had a weird ice-resembling lipstick on them and sang with the nature of a black sixties diva:
"Coldfingeeer.
He's the man, the man with the icy touch.
A lawyer's touch!
Such a cold finger.
Beckons you to enter his igloo of sin
But don't go innnn."
,she sang, as she pointed an icy-gloved index finger to the newly resurrected redhead who watched her with intrigue. Her song was passionate, yet coldly intimidating, as the singer was warning Jean not to proceed to the basement for her own good.
"Frozen words he will pour in your eaaaaar,
But his lies can't disguise what you feaaaaaar,
For a clever girl knows when he's sued her,
It's the lawsuit of death from
Mister Coldfinger.
Pretty girl beware of this heart of coooold
This heart is sold!"
The oldie divesque music went on, letting Jean rethink about her decision to see Bobby. Was the song really descibing him? Had Dazzler played with the Ice and got herself burnt? Was Jean going to be screwed over, once again today? Her singing resembled a plead now, not a warning... a warning still lets you make your choice, after all. But was Dazzler really referred to Jean in her song? Or she just wanted to add to her theatrical-like performance with gestures like pointing to Jean, pretending to warn her about inexistent dangers?
"Frozen words he will pour in your eaaaar,
But his lies can't disguise what you feaaaar,
For an innocent girl can be prosecuted,
It's the lawsuit of death from
Mister Coldfinger.
Pretty girl beware of this heart of coooold
This heart is sold!"
Dazzler then began giving the song a run for its money, putting all the intensity in her voice to make the closing of the song unsettlingly heart-breaking and yet keeping it still a strong, warning advise:
"He loves only cold,
And the goooold.
He loves cold.
He loves only coooold,
And the gooooold.
He loves cooooooooooooooooold!"
Phoenix was clearly unsettled by this warning, performance who gave all kind of disturbing thoughts into her skull. Still, she couldn't back off now. She was going to see her soon-to-be-lawyer, why should she be afraid of him? She was one of the most powerful creatures on the galaxy, for God's sake! She could handle herself.
After all, Bobby should surely be still harmless.
Even as a lawyer.
And thus, ignoring the song's warning lyrics, Jean Grey walked down the stairs to face the unknown.
The ancient wooden staircase was creaking like something dying. Jean just hastened her pace, making sure that her steps were not becoming heavier, so that the stairs would manage to handle her weight.
She sighed in exasperation as the stairs came to an end. But now that death by an old collapsed staircase was avoided, death by bumping into heavy things was afoot. The basement room where she had ended into was dark like a lonely person's grave.
"No problem for a Phoenix there", she whispered to herself as she clicked her fingers and her index finger was suddenly on fire, providing light to the small basement room. This room didn't seem like the lawyer office kinda place. It apparently was used for storage, judging from the small crates all over the floor.
"Now, for the light switch..." she searched around but found nothing that seemed able to lit the place better than her finger. She saw something far better though.
"A door!" she smiled as she reached for the handle and pulled. A serious amount of light flooded her eyesight and blinded her. It seemed that the flaming finger wouldn't be of much use anymore, so she blew the fire away and stepped forward.
"Do you have an appointment, miss?" a faint female voice called at her. The new room had nothing in common with the previous one, being all well-lit and having freshly-polished granite floor. Jean admired the post-modern setting and art nouveau furniture before facing the secretary that now looked upon her with curiosity. A heavy door was leading to another room and a golden inscription gave her an idea of what it was all about:
"ROBERT L. DRAKE
Attorney Extraordinaire"
"Excuse me Miss...do you have an appointment with Mr. Drake?" the blonde bombshell of a secretary re-asked. She had a classic pair of crazy-looking pink-framed glasses on and her succulent lips were playing with the tip of her pen. Her cute little mini-skirt and top exposed a massive amount of cleavage and her stocking-covered legs were crossed in an obscene manner. Her PC was on, but probably not used for professional stuff; a quick glance at the screen revealed a few chatrooms of the not-so-innocent type.
"No. Not really. Is he busy?" Jean asked in the most sweet and gentle voice she could summon. Showing coolness and self-respect was the most important thing she should do if she wanted to keep herself in control.
"He's always busy" the slutty secretary said as she fixed her eyes on Jean's, daring her to show anything more than indifferent casualness. She could tell when she wasn't liked, that little minx. It was apparent that the secretary was very bored
and wouldn't hesitate to make a scene if Jean insisted on entering Bobby's office without an appointment.
"Well, he's never busy when it comes to his sister" Jean said, toning every single word in the sentence as a gleam in her eye betrayed her successful attempt at brainwashing the secretary into believing whatever she said and letting her in.
"I'll inform Mr. Drake that his older sister has come to visit" the secretary said in a mild, zombie-like manner, picking up the intercom. How did that bitch assume that Jean was older than her boss? Especially when she hadn't aged at all in these last five years, being in a cosmic entity's egg and all?
"First blood for the telepath redhead" she heard Bobby's voice throught the intercom as she walked in to meet him for the first time after all these years.
"Bobby...how did you know?" she said out loud as she entered Bobby Drake's impressive office and headquarters.
He was sitting on a comfy armchair, buried behind papery towers of cases and files, all resting on his large two-sided desk. A small living room was set beside the desk and a Home Cinema was visible at the far end of the room. He even had a mini-bar conveniently placed close to the three armchairs who were supposed to be there for his clientele.
As for Bobby himself, he never looked better in all of those years that she knew him, although he looked a little...darker than usual. Maybe he had changed as much as Scott had during her long absence. He wasn't permanently iced-up anymore, as his pale normal-looking skin and well-combed sandy blonde hair revealed. Or maybe naughty Iceman had grabbed an image-inducer or two on his way out of the mansion.
"You...you're human again." was all she could comment as she tried to break the ice between them. They both knew that they weren't the same people they used to be the last time they saw each other, so they probably had to jump-start their relationship again.
"And you're alive again." he shot back sarcastically. "It's good that we're both so observant people, don't you think?"
She broke into a smile, losing all hesitation for a while. He was still the class clown, although a little edgier than usual. "Well, you can guess what happened so that I can walk this planet again. It's no big news anyway. What about you? I can recall that your permanent iced-up situation was a result of a secondary mutation. How did you get rid of that?"
"You really up for listening to such a long story that soon? You just walked in here. You didn't even have a seat yet. Let's not rush into things, big sis." he ironically pointed out the last words, motioning for her to sit at the armchair closest to his desk.
"Right. You're absolutely right. I'm sorry, I'm just in such a hurry to keep up with everything that has changed during my being dead." She made herself comfortable, resting her elbows on the arms of the comfy chair. "When I was revived, I flew down to the mansion straight from the moon, and I started walking around the place with some kid I didn't know, trying to find and store all the information my mind could handle...and believe me, that turned out bad. Really bad. I'm still in shock."
"Poor Jean." was all he could comment, and the snarky nature of his comment made clear to her that he didn't know anything of her meeting with Scott. "Sit back and relax. I'll have Linda fetch you a coffee or a drink." he said, reaching for a button on the side of his desk.
"By the way, I don't like that skanky wench you'd call a secretary. I really disapprove of her." she made herself clear. Not that she really cared if she would affect Bobby's mind, she just wanted to clear out how much she disliked that secretary.
"Oh, Jean...really, do I have to grow old and be 50-something to start hiring slutty hotties as secretaries... let me enjoy my youth, okay? I'm working so much that Linda is the only way of seeing excessively filled cleavages every day. I wouldn't count on doing that on my personal life" Bobby only thought the last two sentences towards Jean's telepathically active mind, because Linda had already walked in, curious of what she was needed for.
"Mr. Drake? You asked for me?" she mouthed in the most cliche of ways. Duh! She just heard him calling her through the intercom, what does she need the assurance for?
"Yes. Linda, could you make some coffee for Mrs. Summers?" Bobby said, noticing that his last words made Jean's nose twitch, like she was reminded of something ugly. That was weird, 'cause Jean should have been pleased that the secretary she so much disliked would reduce herself to a coffee-maker.
"Jean, you're okay?" Bobby checked on her as soon as Linda walked out. But by then, whatever threatened to claw its way out of her mind had been shoved back inside again.
"I'm fine. You still haven't told me what happened and you can walk into a room without having everyone trying to carve ice-chunks out of you for their beverages anymore."
"Well, after your death I had been really miserable...not to mention pissed at everybody. At Scott for getting it on with Emma Frost..."
"Why, thank you, darling."
"...after all, I should have gotten a shot at her first! He was supposed to mourn at your loss first. Not that anyone believed that you were gone for good, of course..."
"Grrrr."
"...I was also pissed at everybody else, because I was stuck to being a permanent ice-sculpture and nobody seemed to care about doing anything about it. They even said I was being a jerk for no reason, if you can believe it! And what about my closest buddies? Warren was boinking a teenager, and we barely hanged out with hank anymore...he didn't even fill me in when he was telling everybody that he was gay..."
"...so, he was gay?"
"...as much as the gay community would love it, no. You can have Storm assure you of that, if you want to." he said, resulting in malevolent chuckling.
"Ororo? Hank...?" then she broke in a very Rachel-from-Friends-like "Noooooooooo...!"
"Better believe it. Well, anyway, Hank finally thought about seeing to my situation and eventually examined me in his lab. He found out that being permanently iced-up wasn't a secondary mutation. I mean, a secondary mutation should be something that makes you more powerful, right? Not something that limits your powers...and being stuck into ice-form was surely a limitation."
"So, what was the reason for your condition?"
"It was what Hank referred to as "psychological reasons". Said I should heal by getting happier, more complete. One way of doing that would be to find myself a girlfriend, but if that was possible when in ice-form there wouldn't be a problem in the first place!"
"And the other solution...?"
"Work therapy. Being fulfilled in a professional level would change me back to all-flesh Bobby again. But there is actually no way of getting pleasure from accounting. So now we go back to the fact that I was pissed at everybody and needed a way out of the mansion. Now, remember what I did the last time I was pissed at everybody and needed a way out of the mansion?"
"Yeah. You went off to college...Ohhhhhhh!" she mouthed in realization.
"So I went off to college again, wanting to become independent and -more importantly- human again. My ice-condition didn't make me the most popular person in college, so there were no obstructions in my studying...I even finished Law School two years in advance! I was that good! Plus, as soon as I finished college once more, I found out I could turn back into human form again."
"So you studied...Law?"
"Helloooo, news-flash! I am sitting on a lawyer's office, right?"
"Actually, you're sitting on the chair in front of the office."
"Ever the smartass." he said with a grin. "So, I bought this cozy little nightclub and turned the basement into an even cozier headquarter...I even hired Alyson, you know, Dazzler, to sing in my nightclub!"
"I guess I don't have to presume that you also chose her repertoire...!" she said, remembering the ominous song she heard upon entering the nightclub above.
"You know me, Jean...I just wanted to build up some mystery...do you know how many clients I have won because of that song? It makes them think I'm as ruthless and sneaky as a lawyer can get..!"
"A lawyer...? Sneaky? Pfft! Like that would ever be possible!" she joked.
"So, what brings you here?" Bobby said, cutting right into the subject, after all that chit-chat. "I know you would like to see how I am eventually, but not that soon...it's just your second day on Earth and I suppose there should be more urgent things to do... did something happen back at the mansion?"
Jean froze in her seat. Bobby didn't use to have such a direct yet subtle approach to things... must be the lawyer thing.
"Bobby...the truth is that I also came here for professional reasons. Your professional reasons. And I don't mean the accountant aspect of your professions."
"Jean? Why would you need a lawyer for? You're powerful and practically immortal, not to mention that you're inhabited by a cosmic force that doesn't need to follow human logic and laws... What need could you have for my extraordinary, extra-expensive skills?"
"Extra-expensive? But...you could do a discount for me...right? For your... big sister... Jean? Although I can't say I actually have any money right now...the dead have no fortune." she whispered before breaking into silent tears.
"Jean...? Why are you crying? I can tell this isn't about the money...plus I'm not going to charge you anyway...just tell me one thing...what happened to you? Who did this to you?"
Jean looked right into his eyes and a low beat began playing, threatening to build into another song.
The beat soon evolved into a teenage MTV-style pop/rock rhythm, and Jean got up from her seat and began tipping her foot on the floor according to the music. As soon as she should begin singing, a big concert-style microphone with a large base materialized in front of her and she grabbed it, singing into it with painful passion she was repressing until that day:
"His name is Scott-
We used to be together.
He was all I had got,
It just couldn't get any better"
She was lost into a smile as she sang those few verses, which soon disappeared when she reached the harsh reality of her new words.
"And oh, how I miss-
His hot, tender kiss.
But he doesn't want me anymore-
And he doesn't give a damn-about me!"
Suddenly, reaching the chorus, the beat turned into pure light rock and Jean jumped on her armchair, hopping on it and shaking around her big microphone thingy, singing with the rage and the lament of a woman scorn. In the meanwhile, darkness had encompassed the room and only some strategically placed lights were turned on and dancing around like in some rock concert, toned by some amounts of rock-stage-smoke that had mysteriously appeared.
"Cause I'm just a mutant dirtbag baby!
Yeah I'm just a mutant dirtbag baby!
He had another woman's baby-that bitch!
Ooohoo Hoo Hooooooo!"
She jumped back down on the floor and returned to her previous more repressed singing, but making sure that she added a little poisonous tone in her voice as she mouthed the next few verses:
"His new wife's a whore
And she seems to know more "tricks"
Or maybe it's because
She dresses like a Dominatrix
They have a small kid
she won't bother to breast-feed
so he doesn't need me anymore
And he doesn't give a damn about me!"
Jean jumped up on Bobby's desk, kicking away everything that was becoming an obstacle on her presence on it, like laptops, pens, paperwork and other dangerous stuff she could trip on. Bobby flinched upon seeing this but kept watching her...she was giving a good show!
"Cause I'm just a mutant dirtbag baby!
Yeah I'm just a mutant dirtbag baby!
He had another woman's baby-that bitch!
Ooohoo Hoo Hooooooo"
She fell on her knees, still on Bobby's empty now desk, and leaned back as much as she could, bringing the mic to her mouth and practically screaming:
"Oh yeaaaaaah-dirtbaaaaag
No, he doesn't know what he's missing.
Oh yeaaaaaah-dirtbaaaaag
No, he doesn't know what he's missing!"
She brought her body forward again and leaned towards Bobby, still on her knees, grabbing him by his stylish tie, but not in a seductive Jessica Rabbit way, just in a desperate X-Woman way:
"Man I feel like shit-
the moon is full and I am lonely.
You're my only hope-
What can I do to destroy him?
This man's gotta pay-
-Let's "out" him as gay-"
Suddenly she released Bobby's tie and sat on her own butt, realizing that everything was hopeless and she resumed singing with a desperate and quitting tone in her voice...
"But still he won't love me anymore
And he'll never give a damn about . . ."
Suddenly, Bobby grabbed the mic from her hands and brought it to his mouth, interrupting into her song, also leaning towards her to make himself more believable and confident-looking:
"I've got some news for you:
-I'm your lawyer baby-
Listen to me and-
don't say maybe...
We're gonna get him good Jean baby-
you'll see . . . Ooohoo Hoo Hooooooooooo!"
And together they sang, as the both of them climbed on Bobby's desk and they both started smashing some guitars that had just materialized into their hands, all the time laughing and dancing like something big and mischievous was coming along...
"Oh yeaaaaaah-dirtbaaaaag
No, he doesn't know what he's missing.
Oh yeaaaaaah-dirtbaaaaag
No, he doesn't know what he's missiiiiiiiiiiiiing...!"
Linda the secretary walked in, having a plate with two cups of coffee in her hands to find Bobby and Jean standing on his thrashed office desk, holding some destroyed guitars and laughing hysterically. Broken things were all over the office's floor. Her boss and his obviously older sister looked at her with a "caught-red-handed" expression on their bewildered faces.
"Oh, darn, I knew I should have gotten that job at Hooters instead" she whispered to herself as she rested a hand on her forehead.
TWO MONTHS LATER...
Emma Frost sat on her comfy white couch, lightning one of her exquisitely expensive cigars and bringing it to her mouth. Her baby son was sitting by the fireplace, playing with the stuffed animals he so much loved. But Emma wasn't exactly enthralled by this moment of family and motherly bliss. Because the music had began playing again, for another night, and she simply couldn't bear all the irritating happy thoughts she was picking up from the other side of the mansion.
She couldn't help but contemplate the events of the last few months. When Jean was resurrected, she didn't exactly feel threatened, cause she new that the worst that could happen would be Jean turning bad and having to be killed again. Emma would be certainly fine with that. But Jean proved herself to be a lot trickier than that.
The Phoenix hired Bobby Drake, previously known as Iceman, as a lawyer, and used the legal path this time. Drake, although he wasn't exactly an experienced legal attorney, used his impressive lawyer skills and combined them with his knowledge of the X-Men, since he was an original X-Man himself.
One thing that Drake had in mind was the fact that Jean wasn't Scott's ex-wife, but his dead wife. Scott wasn't a divorced man before marrying Emma, but a widow. And suddenly Jean Grey wasn't dead anymore.
Now, the American law wasn't used to function by X-Men standards, so Drake's claims that Miss Grey was never dead were more likely to believe than the real thing; did they actually expect a judge to believe that Jean had died and came back from the grave, and that wasn't even the first time she had done so?
So, Drake used the more "down to earth" facts to his advantage; Scott Summers had re-married and he hadn't divorced his previous wife Jean Grey-Summers, who happened to be alive. And, by the way, Scott Summers didn't belong to a religion that supported multiple marriages. Therefore his marriage with Emma Frost was never valid.
The marriage of Scott Summers and Emma Frost was immediately annulled, and Scott was now considered still married to Jean Grey, since the two of them had never divorced in the first place.
Scott was really angry at Jean for playing such dirty tricks on him, he never believed that Jean could be bitchy enough to destroy his new marriage and become his wife again, although she knew he didn't want her anymore...so he did the next logical step in order to prove her how wrong she was to challenge him like that; he applied for a divorce.
That was exactly what that filthy lawyer Bobby Drake had predicted. That was Drake's and Jean's aim all along; for Scott to divorce with her. You see, Drake had done his homework and he had researched to find things that currently escaped Scott's mind, furious as he was to get rid of Jean.
When Charles Xavier left the institute to go and rebuild Genosha, he made sure to legally inherit the mansion to Scott, making it Scott's estate. Therefore, Jean had the legal right to claim half the mansion from her divorcee!
Pulling the strings above everyone else, Drake managed to make Scott angry enough to not care about what Jean would claim of his fortune. So they managed to snatch half the Institute from Summers and Jean became half-Headmaster of the Institute. Since there were already two of them around (Emma and Scott), Emma Frost had to step down from Headmaster and leave Scott and Jean bickering with each other.
Soon, the Institute was divided in two; literally! Jean drew a white chalk-line beginning from the middle of the main entrance and divided the mansion in two equal parts; Scott would get the West side of the mansion and Jean would get the East one. The students and teachers also had to pick a side of the mansion to live, and the majority of them chose Jean and Bobby's side rather than Scott and Emma's. It seemed that most of the older residents of the mansion weren't that satisfied with Scott's choice to start dating Emma right after Jean's death, and they held a subconscious grudge against him all the time, a grudge that paid off when Jean came back and everything came to a confrontation.
An excessive amount of mutants was now residing at Jean's half of the mansion, and since they were too many to fit in there they had to sleep in couches and sleeping bags in the corridors. Since they already lived like it was a communal or a camping or something, they decided to act like that as well; Jean's side of the mansion had turned into something between a frat party, a funky Latin night club, a Las Vegas hotel and a hippies-singing-around-the-campfire-thing. The bigger rooms were used as music halls for recreation and fun, and the X-Men and their students spent the whole night partying and singing.
The other half of the mansion, the one where Emma and Scott were being the bosses, was somewhat deserted, and the only thing that could be heard there was the distant, irritating music from the other, funner part of the mansion. The only people that chose to stick with Scott were the students that arrived after Jean's "temporary departure", since they knew nothing about the situation and thought they should stick with the leader they already knew. One of those students was that irritating para-mutant kid from Iceland, which kept bothering Emma's nerves every time he would pass by and she would inevitably pick up his idiotic thoughts.
But, suddenly, a new song that sprung up to life at the other side of the mansion interrupted Emma's resenting thoughts... those bastards sure knew how to party!
She couldn't resist her innate female curiosity...Emma conjured a mental projection of herself and sent it towards the other half of the mansion to have a look at the happenings...it sure beat sitting there and boring herself to death!
Her invisible mental projection walked her way into the empty corridors toward the Main Hall which was the first thing that everyone who entered the mansion would see... there lied the accursed, fat chalk line-that divided the X-Men in two...or more accurately the line that divided her and Scott from the other X-Men.
Crossing the line without fearing for repercussions, since her actual body was asleep back at her own little couch, Emma followed the music to one of the larger halls of the East Wing. Sleeping bags could be seen scattered in every corner, and most lights were turned off for atmosphere's sake...she finally reached a door and walked through it, finding the source of the noise.
The big hall was full of people, even people who normally didn't live there, and a big stage had been set-up for anyone who wanted to grab a mic and sing...it was like a karaoke contest, only it wasn't a contest, and the technology used made it something closer to a real concert rather than a karaoke thing.
But the concert currently resembled a Las Vegas show, with everyone gathered around the stage dancing to the old-fashioned music and waiting for Wolverine, who was deliciously shaking his hips onstage, to actually start singing with his rugged, strong and sexy voice, while some kitsch Inca-style dressed hotties were dancing around him:
"It's not unusual to be loved by anyone
It's not unusual to have fun with anyone
but when I see her hanging about with anyone
It's not unusual to see me cryyyy,
ohhhhhhhh I wanna' die"
Logan seemed to be singing with impressive cheer and a hidden sincerity in his voice...there was a feeling in his performance as if he really meant what he sang, although he didn't feel the pain most people who were in love did...it was almost as if he was in love with someone who would never answer back but he was happy with it anyway!
Emma also noticed that Jean wasn't present in the room...which is why own her telepathic presence wasn't located yet. Then she remembered that Jean had gone out tonight, and rumors said that she had hooked up with a millionaire that would help her rebuild the East Wing in order to fit everybody in...
Logan kept singing with cheerful abandon as his back-vocalists, Jubilee and Kitty, appeared behind him, at the deep end of the stage, in order to aid him into his singing...the crowd was going mad at the time, as it seemed that the gathering was reaching its peak at the "fun factor", and the Inca-dressed girls were jumping into the crowd to dance within them.
"It's not unusual to go out at any time
but when I see her out and about it's such a crime
if she should ever want to be loved by anyone,
It's not unusual
-it happens every day, no matter what I say-
I guess it happens all the tiiiiiime
love will never do what I want it to
why can't this telepath be miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine?"
Logan winced as he realized how he almost revealed his secret feelings with those last words...but before anyone from the crowd would realize what he mouthed and look up to him with raised eyebrows, he started dancing crazily in order to avert the attention from the changed lyrics... A rampage of cheers and claps was the response from below him, as he swung the mic around holding it from its cable and shook his ass towards the ladies behind him, sticking his tongue out for extra naughtiness effect.
Soon everyone was hyped up to the maximum and Logan began finishing his song and setting up the grounds for the next X-Man on the microphone...
"It's not unusual, to be mad with anyone
It's not unusual, to be sad with anyone
but if I ever find that she changed her mind sometime
it's not unusual to find out that I'm in love with her
whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh, whoa-ohhhhh-ohhhhhh-ohhhhh whoa-oh-oh-oh..."
As soon as Wolverine had finished his inspirational performance, the music changed into a funky Latin tune...it was Calypso! The partying crowd began cheering as they formed a huge conga line around the room. Logan threw his microphone into exactly the middle of the crowd, and a large, blue and furry hand sprang up and grabbed it.
The Beast winked playfully to Logan and then turned his attention to the sensational beauty next to him, Ororo Munroe, also known as Storm or Beast's Girlfriend. The huge conga line was encircling the two of them, they were literally the center of all attention! Storm started a solo dance that would put J.Lo to shame, shaking it like she was born in Rio De Janeiro after all and not Egypt (or Harlem, to be more accurate).
Hank just pointed his blue fingers at Ororo and began singing his heart out to her!
"Shake, shake, shake, Ororo, shake your body line
Shake, shake, shake, Ororo, shake it all the time!
Work, work, work, Ororo, work that body line
Work, work, work, Ororo, work it all the time!"
Then Hank turned to the people around them and kept singing, looking at them as if he was opening up to them and telling them about the happiness that filled his life:
"My girl's name is Ororo
I tell you friends, I adore her
And when she dances, oh brother
She's a goddess chick in all kinds of weather"
Getting in the mood, everyone in the room joined in for the chorus, with Hank only adding his own little solo words every now and then:
"(Jump in de line, rock your body in time!)-OK, I believe you
(Jump in de line, rock your body in time!)-OK, I believe you
(Jump in de line, rock your body in time!)-OK, I believe you
(Jump in de line, rock your body in time!)-Whoa!
Shake, shake, shake, Ororo, shake your body line-Whoa
Shake, shake, shake, Ororo, shake it all the time!
Work, work, work, Ororo, work your body line
Work, work, work, Ororo, work it all the time!"
Once more, Hank began showcasing his love for Storm, as she kept shaking her booty in ways that would make a real Latin chica green with envy:
"You can talk about cha cha
Tango, waltz, or de rumba
Ororo's dance has more title
You jump in the saddle
Hold on to de bridle
(Jump in de line, rock your body in time!)-OK, I believe you
(Jump in de line, rock your body in time!)-Rock your body, child!
(Jump in de line, rock your body in time!)-Somebody, help me!
(Jump in de line, rock your body in time!)-Whoa!"
Emma's mental projection began worrying as she caught herself tapping her toes on the floor according to the music. She could see every single X-Man in that accursed conga line; except for Jean of course, and that filthy ice-breathed lawyer of hers! She could see that Kitty, Logan and Jubilee had joined the huge conga line, and Jubilation must have drunk a little too much, since she had put her hands on the ass of the guy in front of her and not his waist as she was supposed to. Never mind that the guy in front of Jubilee was Nightcrawler!
On the other corner of the room, Rogue and Gambit were making out, totally indifferent to the public around them, acting like they were in some frat party!
Emma really considered what would happen if someone attacked the mansion the very next morning, finding a mass of hangover-happy X-Men inside.
Beast continued his singing, oblivious to the presence of Emma's mental image in the room:
"Shake, shake, shake, Ororo, shake your body line
Shake, shake, shake, Ororo, shake it all the time-Whoa!
Work, work, work, Ororo, work your body line-Yep!
Work, work, work, Ororo, work it all the time!
Ororo, she's a sensation
The reason for av-iation!
And fellas, you got to watch it
When she wind up she bottom she go like a rocket!"
Right at this moment, wanting to add dramatic effect to Hank's last lines, Ororo used her powers to raise herself up the air with a soft breeze, making everyone around go "Whoaaaaa!" as she resumed dancing with more gusto as she levitated above everyone's head. Everybody resumed singing with added excitement as they watched her dance like a real Goddess.
"(Jump in de line, rock your body in time)-OK, I believe you!
(Jump in de line, rock your body in time)-Hoist those guns a leetle higher!
(Jump in de line, rock your body in time)-Humpin' jiminy!
(Jump in de line, rock your body in time)-Whoa oh oh oh"
Ororo abruptly let herself come back down, and she landed right on her feet and resumed dancing before everyone could apprehend what happened. She was really into it now, slapping her thighs and putting her palms at the sides of her butt while she looked sultrily at her blue and seriously feline lover, who returned to the song with a voice that thankfully didn't resemble a cat at all.
"Shake, shake, shake, Ororo
Shake your body line!
Work, work, work, Ororo
Work itall the time!
Dance, dance, dance, Ororo
Dance itall the time!
Work, work, work, Ororo
Work itall the time!
Ororo dances calypso
Left to right is de tempo
And when she gets the sensation
She go up in the air
Come down in slow motion!"
Storm followed the lyrics once more and raised herself up to the ceiling, and then slowly came back down as she did a full circle around herself. The conga lines broke as everyone parted from each other and went to dancing by themselves or with their significant other, knowing that the party was soon coming to an end.
"(Jump in de line, rock your body in time)-OK, I believe you
(Jump in de line, rock your body in time)-Somebody, help me!
(Jump in de line, rock your body in time)-OK, I believe you
(Jump in de line, rock your body in time)-Whooooa
Shake, shake, shake, Ororo, shake your body line
Shake, shake, shake, Ororo, shake itall the time
Work, work, work, Ororo!"
As everyone broke into clapping their hands not only to Beast and Wolverine for their sensational performances but also to each other for the fun they have offered to one another, Emma decided to shut off her mental projection and get away from all this unreasonably high cheerfulness...it made her stomach sick.
"I know I'm not the telepath in this room, but you were gone for too long... That means you actually liked what you had been watching, although you might never admit it."
What the hell? Emma's consciousness had just returned into her body, but she remembered being alone in the room with her son when she left it.
She looked directly at the source of the voice, which was the other side of the couch she was sprawled upon. What she met was two sparkling blue eyes and a set of Colgate-white teeth, all suitably packed in the sleaziest grin she had ever taken sight of...
Drake.
"What's all that shock for? You had been drifting away in the sores of the exquisite art of mental peeping, so someone had to watch out for the kid and make sure that he doesn't climb into the fireplace or something..." He made it sound like an excuse but she knew he was actually judging her of being a careless mother. He had made himself comfortable on her sofa, which showed that he had been there pretty much from the moment her body went limp and her mind went off to "peep" at the other side of the mansion.
"Get your feet off that coffee table or die." was however the thing that she had to say before everything else. That table was a heirloom she had brought all the way from Massachusetts. And she was the notorious White Queen, she probably wouldn't hesitate to punish him in a real bitchy way if he gave her an opening.
"Uh?" he mouthed, before realizing what she meant and put his feet back on the floor. "Oh, well. But you should know that these Armani shoes which were touching your coffee table are probably more expensive that the table itself." he added, gesturing to his feet.
"I suppose you didn't come all the way here just to show off your newfound economic comfort, Robert dear?"
"Show off my money to you? You're like Bill Gates, Emma... only with bigger boobs and better taste in clothing. And a blond wig." he kinda winced at the mental image of Bill Gates with all the aforementioned "attributes".
"Your smooth way of talking to women was always one of your greater charms, Robert..." she answered back with an evil smile. She was taking the upper hand again at this little word game they were beginning to form.
"Yeah, yeah. Your son, by the way, seemed to have a great time as long as you were missing in action." he changed subject, gesturing towards Emma's little boy. The kid was still playing by the fireplace, only this time his stuffed animals were somewhat gutted, their fluffy exterior had been ripped open by something sharp and their stuffing was hanging out. Tommy was still holding the head of a decapitated Bugs Bunny figure and pretended that it growled to the other maimed toys.
"A cute kid, really." he added as he saw Emma's eyes blinking, not because she was surprised at what se saw, but because she was surprised that Bobby had seen it too. Then she suddenly stared at him.
"Did she send you here? Does she want to add threats and little mind-games to everything else she has already done? Why doesn't she come here and do her dirty work herself? Hasn't she done enough already? It's not like she's not capable of screwing with us once more." if it was any other woman these words would have brought her in hysterical levels, but Emma sounded as cool and self-controlled as a surgeon who was bored of his work.
"I came here 'cause I felt like it, Em. You think that, being Jean's legal representative, I would fell like representing her in every other aspect of her life as well? Then I would have to get into a catfight with you, or just fry your ass with my big cosmic-powered fire-turkey."
"You would have your sorry behind kicked if you got in a catfight with me, anyway." she said snottily.
"Yeah. There's a reason that guys never get into 'catfights' with the ladies. You see, there's already a handicap when only one of the two opponents has nuts that can be kicked. And especially when the other one was boots with huge point heels..." Bobby was beginning to worry himself with how much he was drifting away in this little chat...and to which direction.
"Okay, okay, I got your point already! So, you felt like coming up here and intimidating me with mental images of nasty nut-kicking? That's so not like you."
"You really think you're the bad guy in the story, don't you Emma? You're not the center of the universe as often as you believe you should be, you know. Nobody has a grudge against you for stealing Scott from Emma. Scott isn't an object to steal. He made a choice. A bad, unconventional choice, maybe."
"A bad choice? "A bad choice?" I only showed him that he had other options...besides sticking with a woman that got to die every second year and then come back, only to die again. It's like a really perverted on-and-off relationship. I didn't do anything wrong. And what the Hell am I doing? I don't even have to apologize to you!"
" You, Emma, did nothing wrong to apologize for. It's Scott that is going to suffer a few consequences for his options. You were actually supportive for Scott, and you really loved him. As far as Scott is concerned you always did him justice." He glanced at her growling son and then back at her. "Didn't you?"
As she also glanced back and forth for a second, Bobby didn't give her the chance to open her mouth and respond, but only kept talking, after dropping his little bomb.
"Maybe everyone wanted to blame you at first, but you're really not to blame at all. You only did what you always did." Bobby now seemed like he was at her side, being comforting and much less venomous than usual. That filthy patronizer!
"And what is it that I always did, pray tell?" she said, indifferently but with a raised eyebrow nonetheless.
"Being a bitch."
Now her eyes grew big like those of an anime cartoon.
"Did the words that I think that just came out of your mouth actually came out of your...filthy, crap-eating, lawyer mouth!"
"Yeap. No offense, Em, but you're a Big Ole Bitch. You're, like, the Queen of Bitches. An all classy, sexy, gorgeous, man-stealing, pun-shooting, I-don't-give-a-shit-about-your-damn-opinion Bitch."
"Why, you..."
"It's sexy, really. That's what your charm is all about. But it's growing old." He got up from the couch, partly because he was afraid of her big white boots with the pointy heels, but mostly because of what he planned next.
To sing.
He bounced back on the couch and stood on it, ignoring Emma's deadly stare on him (he was still wearing his shoes, after all!) and a very well-known music started playing out of nowhere, startling Emma's little son, Tommy, who growled in lament and run away to his room.
Bobby had settled his feet good on the couch and grabbed a broom, icing it up and then breaking it, separating the broomstick from the more useful part of the broom, turning it into an icy microphone, and taking a rock-star pose, although the music really didn't resemble rock at all. Right as Emma was ready to kick him out of her couch and give him a real nice shiner with her extra-pointy heels, he started singing with a surprisingly cheeky and self-confident voice:
"You can bitch, you can moan, having the time of your life
-oooohhhh-See that ho, watch these boots, dig in the Bitching Queeeeeen!"
Then he suddenly jumped off the couch and crouched right by Emma's face (who was still leaning on the couch) singing to her very close to her lips, taunting her with his lyrics.
"You had men by the legions,
Always treated them like morons
You need someone to tame you, take you under his wing
You really could use a "King"
Not anybody could be that guy
Should be tough enough to make you cry
Cause when you're not being restricted, but just do what you want
You're a wench with huge fangs,
And when you get the chance..."
Bobby stood up and took a very epic pose, looking as if he was singing for a great legend of the past...he really looked ominous yet irritating to Emma at the time.
"You are the Bitching Queen, sour and mean, long past seventeen
Bitching Queen, makes male hearts beat like tambourine yeah-yeahhhhh
You can bitch, you can moan, having the time of your life
-oooohhhh-
See that ho, watch these boots, dig in the Bitching Queeeeeeeeen!"
Leaning over her on the same couch, Bobby run his non-occupied hand ('cause the other one was busy holding the mic, you perverts:P ) up Emma's semi-exposed leg, from the tip of her stiletto heel up to the finishing of her white leather thigh-level uber-sexy boot, closing his face to her and looking at her straight in the eye, with an almost teasingly seductive tone.
"With your thigh boots, you turn 'em on
But you know all that white leather's wrooong
Looking out for more victims, anyone will do
You're in the mood for some fun
And when you get the chance..."
Pretending up to the point that he was almost ready to come on to her, Bobby flipped back up from Emma and started dancing on her priceless coffee table. Emma was so enthralled by the sight by then that she didn't notice his expensive Armani shoes marking the eucalypt-made surface of her heirloom furniture.
"You are the Bitching Queen, dipped in sin, horny like a teen
Bitching Queen, makes male hearts beat like tambourine yeah-yeahhhhh
You can bitch, you can moan, having the time of your life
-oooohhhh-
Look at her scheme, a diamond dream, dig in the Bitching Queeeeeeeeeen
...Dig in the Bitching Queeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!"
As Bobby paused his singing, he froze right where he was standing, having just realized that he had been dancing on Emma's table, which was supposed to be off-bounds in the first place. He looked at her, expecting her bitchy apocalyptic wrath, but instead saw her smiling...the thing that he actually didn't know was that she was barely able to suppress her urge to break into delirious clapping.
"So, Robert dear, you really think I'm a bitch, don't you?" she asked him in a very calm tone instead.
"Gee, and here I thought all that singing hadn't made my point clear by now." he trailed off, getting back his cool facade again.
That actually made her chuckle. "You're good, you..."
"I should be going. Jean has returned." he interrupted, as she felt another telepathic presence flashing into Drake's head, as if someone was showing him a telepathic projection of themselves. "It was nice to see you after all these years, Em."
She just coyly gestured her hand towards the door, as if she was dismissing him for the time being. The truth is that since she hadn't even invited him in, she wasn't supposed to send him off like this. Especially after he had announced his leaving by himself. Thank God Drake wasn't in the mood to stay there a bit more and talk about her gesture.
Emma really needed to be alone for a while...Drake's opinion on her had struck her as a surprise, but mostly a pleasant one...she knew she wasn't a pleasant person, hell, she had once been a villain, but most people would only call her a bitch behind her back...or, at least, out of her telepathic reach. And those people certainly didn't call her a bitch with a positive meaning, like Drake did.
"Bitchy is sexy." she repeated to herself and smiled, before getting up and going to check on her son.
A couple of days had passed, and Logan was relieved to know that Jean's billionaire date a few nights before was none other than Warren Worthington III aka Archangel. It seemed that Warren had expressed his intention to fund Jean in her attempt to rule as Headmistress and she had went off to meet him for that reason and only, so it wasn't a date after all. Now the East part of the mansion was crowded with engineering people and workers, walking around all the time like working bees and setting things up and adding a whole new wing to the mansion, so that it would be able to welcome every single student by Jean's side without having them practically sleep on each other.
Logan was pleased to see Jean happy; he couldn't tell if she was happy that her students would all have their own places to sleep from now on, or maybe because this whole ordeal would piss Scott off even further. Or maybe it was the combination of those two that made her so chipper.
There she was now, standing by the phone, waiting for Jubilee to finally hang up to whoever she was talking to in order to make a call of her own, and she was so utterly beautiful that he just had to talk to her.
After all, she wasn't married to anybody now, she was practically free for the taking, not that Logan viewed her as an object to be taken anyway. And those two months that had passed had only made Logan's affection for her become greater, so now he really had to do something about it.
He walked to her casually and touched her shoulder, as she still was busy looking over Jubilee's own shoulder.
"Jean..." he tried to say, but he was interrupted:
"Logan! I was looking for you these last few days. I need to have a word with you. Please come to my office." she said and then proceeded to practically drag him out of there and towards her office.
"Oh, God bless the Wolverine!" Jubilee exclaimed as she kept occupying the phone. "I thought that she was never going to leave my side and let me chat my heart out in peace! What? No, darling, I wasn't talking about you, no worries...so, tell me, Ian, do all Australians have the same sexy accent as you do?"
"Do you know why I brought you here?" Jean's voice was disconcertingly calm...it had that strange aura that somebody's voice has right before telling you some really bad news...
"You're the telepathic one, Jeannie. Don't ask me."
"I'm sorry if it feels like I'm trespassing your personal thoughts, but these last few days I couldn't help picking up stray thoughts from everyone around me every now and then...it must be the added power of the Phoenix inside me, I won't be able to block those stray thoughts for a little while...until I learn to control it again."
It seemed that Jean had picked up some of his recently empowered emotions that he had for her. It seemed that Jean wanted them to talk about the possibility of anything of romantic nature happening between them. It seemed that Logan was going to get shafted. It was okay. He never was the kind of hero who would get the girl at the end of the movie, after all, so he was already used to it.
"The Phoenix has made my telepathy so much stronger that I could even pick up your thoughts..."
"It's okay, red. I can trust you with those thoughts, but I know what you're gonna say, and believe me, it's okay. There's no need to analyze this any further, it's been done to death already."
"That's not the point, Logan. The things I picked up, they were...they were...it was something that really needs to be discussed. It was something buried in the deepest edges of your memory, something hidden, even from you. You have to know."
That's weird. Being a ridiculously lovesick wolverine for her was never hidden in his deepest secret thoughts. And he certainly hadn't forgotten about it.
"These last years...do you remember yourself yearning for something that you just couldn't put your finger on what it was...? Something to do with having someone to take care of and protect?"
"I did. But you were dead, Jeannie. And Jubilee had grown up, she didn't look up to me like she did before. There was this strong need for..."
"...you to be a father figure. But you didn't know why."
"There was Morten, of course, but he never quite bonded with me the way other children would. He's a nice kid, though."
"Logan. I know why. I know why you needed to take care of all these kids. There was a...void inside you. Like you lost a kid -a real child of yours- and you needed to replace that feeling by taking care of other youngsters."
"I don't remember having any children...not in those last five years, at least."
"Logan...that's what the memories carefully hidden in your subconscious are all about. Do you remember having an affair with...Emma Frost?"
"WHAT?...Emma...Frost? You're not serious."
"I know what I found inside your mind, Logan. And I'm sure that if you let me search a little further I'll be able to unlock these memories for you, so that you will be able to remember them yourself."
"But why would the memories of a possible affair with Emma Frost be locked somewhere where even I wouldn't be able to reach them? It doesn't make sense, Jeannie!"
"Logan. Let's look at the facts. You had sex with Emma Frost. Emma Frost is married. Emma Frost is also a powerful telepath, probably powerful enough to break through your mental defenses by now. Don't you think that this little equation is reaching a very apparent result?"
"She made me forget about our affair...!"
"Yes, Logan, but why didn't she just erase all those memories, but instead stored them in some unreachable corners of your mind, risking the exposure of all this information?"
"And why would she want me to forget about all this...? Hey, maybe she sucked at bed and wanted to hide it from everybody!"
"Now, Logan, that's something that Bobby would say." she responded, rolling her eyes.
"Bobby slept with Emma too?" Wolverine was now officially confused.
"Ha! He wishes!" she shot out, before reaching Logan and putting each hand at the sides of his head, easing up the process of unveiling the memories stashed inside.
Inside Logan's Mind
Jean was suddenly in a wholly new place, probably inside Logan's memories that had been stored away. She recognized the place as the exterior of a very classy restaurant, not very far from the Westchester Mansion. She heard some old sad blues music playing and approached the big window, willing to have a peek inside...that's where she would probably find the information she was looking for.
In the middle of the restaurant, she saw a band playing and Logan and Emma were there, dancing together a slow, heart-breaking piece of music. A few feet away from the she could see the table they had abandoned in order to dance; it seemed that they were on a secret date, and probably not one of the first ones. The other patrons had stopped eating their food and they looked at Emma and Logan dancing, probably amazed from their dancing skills, some of them even cheered in the process. But suddenly Emma tripped and fell on Logan's arms, and from the look of her face it seemed more likely that she felt sick and couldn't stand on her feet rather than just trying to sexually assault Logan.
That's when Logan's mental voice started singing from nowhere into Jean's ear, narrating the events of that night to her in slow, heart-breaking rhythms, with a gut-wrenching tone in his voice:
"We skipped the light Fandango
Turned cartwheels 'cross the floor
She was feeling kind of seasick
She almost fainted on the floor
The room was humming harder
As the ceiling flew away
When we called out for another drink
The waiter brought a tray"
Suddenly-flash- the world around her instantly changed and transported Jean outside the window of a doctor's office. Emma and Logan were in there with the doctor, who had just finished examining her and was talking to them about something, which Jean couldn't hear. Logan's tuxedo and Emma's sparkling nightgown told her that that memory was from the same night, only a couple of hours after they urgently left the restaurant. As they listened to the doctor, both mutants' faces seemed lit with surprise and worry. For an instance, Emma trailed a hand over her belly, and suddenly Jean understood what the doc was telling them about.
"And so it waaaaaas that later
As the doctor told his tale
That her face, at first just ghostly
Turned a whiter shade of pale"
The scene around her changed again, and this time Jean was still out on the street, with the difference that Emma and Logan were now standing right across the street, having just exited the doctor's office. Jean had no need to listen to what they were talking about, Logan's mental voice was singing to her all she needed to know.
"She said there is no reason
For her One-Eyed man to know
But I wandered through her teary eyes
And I would not let her goooo
I just went ahead and asked her
If the baby would be mine
But she said that we could not go ooon
And wiped my mind like poured wine"
Across the street, Emma raised her hand and touched Logan's hair, and suddenly he went limp and fainted on the wet pavement, his recent memories erased. Emma started walking away, but she kept bringing her hands to her eyes every once in a while, a gesture that made it obvious the fact that she was trying not to cry. Logan's mental voice went even more heart-breaking as he reached the song's tear-jerking ending.
"And so it waaaaaas that laaaaaater
As her tears began to trail
That my face, at first just ghostly
Turned a whiter shade of pale"
Outside Logan's Mind
The Great and Fearsome Wolverine scooped an escaping tear from the corner of his eye. It seemed that now that he remembered everything, the whole truth was taking on him.
"We apparently were both to blame, Jean." he said, his voice close to breaking. "She was pregnant with Scott's baby, that's why she ended our affair, although we loved each other. She even made it easier for me by making me forget about everything, while she still has to live with the memories of what she couldn't have. She made a sacrifice for her baby's and my own good, Jean. I guess I'm the bad guy in this story." his voice ended up in sniffles.
"Save me the waterworks, buddy." Jean said in a dead-cold voice. She seemed particularly insensitive about his whole ordeal.
That's when Logan noticed that she still had her hands on his head, not to mention her eyes that were still shut, like she was concentrating on something.
"Hm...a-ha! There. Got it." she mumbled, then opened her eyes abruptly like a random scary undead guy from any b-movie. "Logan. These memories...they're all a big ole load of crap. Fake. Manufactured."
"W-WHAT! Jean, you're not serious, are ya?"
"Logan! These memories are probably taken out from some melodramatic movie! Look at Emma today; she hardly even seems to care about her four-year old son. What makes you think that she would give up on you for his sake? Can't you that there's something deeper?"
"Of course she doesn't seem to love her son...maybe he reminds her of all the happiness she could have by my side and blames the kid for making her break up with me."
"Don't humor yourself, Logan, dammit! The woman has played everyone for a fool! The memories you just discovered are a scam! Like a doctor would be able to tell that she was pregnant from a mere quick exam! She clearly made it all up in order to cover up the real memories...the ones I just found right underneath the fake ones. I guess that she didn't expect that the Phoenix would be the one to dig them out when she tucked them under that melodramatic fake-o-rama of hers! She even has bigger boobs in those fake memories! Jeez!"
"More hidden memories? What do they reveal to you, Jeannie?"
"There was never an affair. She just-oh my god- she simply brainwashed you into having sex with her! Then she blew off the little memories you had of your little sex-capades and tucked them under the romantic ones she created! That little bitch!"
"I don't get it...why would she have raw, no-strings-attached sex with me and not want me to remember it, only cover it up with fake memories of a star-crossed love affair that also got stored away in my sub-conscious? Isn't that theory a little nuts? What's your explanation?"
"You better ask Emma herself.. when you go claim your son from her!"
"My...son?" So Emma's kid was really his? And what was the matter with all the hidden memories? Logan's mind was about to burst open from all the confusion.
"Well, I guess there's only one was to make the information sink in, Logan. We're gonna sing a song...about YOU!" Jean said and she made a gesture, opening the door that led to the main hall, where everybody that was by Jean's side was once again partying his heart out!
As both Logan and Jean stepped into the main hall, her eyes flamed on from the Phoenix energy gathering inside her. The ongoing partying abruptly stopped and everyone looked at Jean with surprise, worried about a possible new manifestation of the Dark Phoenix.
But Dark Phoenix it wasn't.
It was the brand new, improved, All-Singing, All Dancing Phoenix and all of her gathered energy suddenly lashed out and entered every single mind of every single person currently present in the room, letting them know about the situation and about the show they would have to put on for Wolverine.
The room went dark and only a couple of spotlights, lighting the center of the main hall were breaking the total darkness around them. Bobby Drake appeared under one of the spotlights and grabbed a microphone, taking the most intimidating look a lawyer could take.
Jean herself sat on a couch that was spotlighted by the second source of light in the hall, and she was immediately joined by Storm, who sat besides her with her all-new afro look, not to mention the huuuge ring-like earrings adorning her ears and pointing out even more the hugeness of her new afro hair. They both assumed disco diva-like positions on the couch, and that was when a beat began playing, telling everyone that the show was just beginning.
The people around began clapping along with the beat, supporting the funkyness in it, and Gambit jumped out of nowhere, sat on a little stool and began accompanying the beat with a funky little solo of his guitar.
And that was when a very well-known rhythm from a famous disco anthem made itself obvious, building up the music and getting everyone around more excited.
And as the music crescendo-ed, everybody else in the room began supporting the music with some very appropriately placed "hey's":
"HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY!"
Until the beat broke into the real song, an real disco epic, and an enormous disco ball descended from the roof and enlightened the whole place a little more, making everyone stop heying and start dancing like crazy!
Bobby was the one to start singing with a very deep, manly, awe-inspiring tone in his voice like he wanted to make it more epic, and his verses were automatically completed by the two ladies on the couch opposing him, Storm and Phoenix, who sang with cheeky and sexy involvement and blew kisses to an astounded Wolverine:
(Bobby): "There lived a certain man in Canada long ago..."
(Phoenix+Storm): "He was hairy and strong, in his eyes a flaming glow!"
(Bobby): "Most people looked at him with terror and with fear!"
(Phoenix+Storm): "But to Xavier's chicks he was such a horny dear!"
Then the ladies continued by themselves, singing with slutty pleasure in their voice and rubbing their bodies over their skimpy and kitsch disco clothing:
"He could gut his foes like no other killer
Full of ruthlessness and fire
But he also was the kind of "driller"
Women would desire"
And then everybody in the room broke into singing the chorus, along with Jean, Ororo and Bobby, as they raised their hands on the air disco-style:
"WO-WO-WOLVERINE!
Lover of the White Queen
No matter that she had no real crown
WO-WO-WOLVERINE!
Greatest mutant love machine
But two white boots made him lose his throooooone!"
Logan could only watch at the whole thing open-mouthed. The funky music made everyone dance in abandon but also put a show on for him and him only, after all, their song was dedicated to him! Bobby respectfully continued the singing showdown between him and the disco-ladies on the couch, who kept crossing and un-crossing their legs according to the rhythm...
(Bobby): "She has a little boy, says it belongs to Cyke"
(Phoenix+Storm): "But some day the truth's gonna shine like a new bike!"
(Bobby): "In all affairs of state he's still the man to please-"
(Phoenix+Storm): "But he's getting old -there's no girl he hasn't 'squeezed' "
The ladies kept the song going by themselves, blinking a teasing eye at Logan across the room:
"For the queen he is no more a lover
Though she knows his 'assets' well
She pretends she's faithful wife n' mother
But soon she's getting hell!"
The whole room broke into singing the chorus again:
"WO-WO-WOLVERINE!
Lover of the White Queen
No matter that she had no real crown
WO-WO-WOLVERINE!
Greatest mutant love machine
But two white boots made him lose his throoooooone!"
Suddenly, everything went black again and a single spotlight pointes at Beast who was hanging from the unlit now disco ball on the roof and talked with a very ominous voice:
"But when his remorse and curiosity and his need
for something more became apparent to more and more people,
the encouragement to do something about this outrageous
situation became louder and louder."
As he said those words, everything went shiny again because the disco ball was once more switched on and Beast bounced off it, letting the music go wild again and the people start supporting it again:
"HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY-HEY!"
Bobby got ready for the last rematch with Storm and Jean sitting opposite him:
(Bobby): " "This man' is going down!" old Cyke said years ago"
(Phoenix+Storm): "But Professor said "Come on, let him have a go!"
(Bobby): "Today he doesn't know this man's his downfall"
(Phoenix+Storm): "Back those days he was right wanting him to take the fall!"
Then all three of them sang the next few verses, as Bobby also jumped on the couch with the disco-diva wannabes:
"Soon some day the time is gonna arrive
That all truth will get to rail
Then all Hell will break loose on their asses
And Phenoix shall prevail!"
And everyone present in the room sang the ending verses of a song that was really going to change Logan's life...for ever:
"WO-WO-WOLVERINE!
Lover of the bitchin' Queen
His feelings do not matter to her
WO-WO-WOLVERINE!
Greatest mutant love machine
She broke his heart but won't get awaaaaaaaaaaaay!
WO-WO-WOLVERINE!
Lover of the bitchin' queen
He never quits so the time has come
WO-WO-WOLVERINE!
Greatest mutant love machine
...To find out whether he has a soooonnnnn!"
TO BE CONTINUED...
Coming on Part 3: who gets to be...
"The All-Singing, All- Dancing Boyfriend Of The Phoenix!"
With songs such as: "Emma Don't Bitch", "I Lost My Heart To A Filthy Lawyer" and a humble homage in Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive"!
Don't lose the amazing conclusion to this epic tale of romance, deceit and unjustified singing!