Chapter 3
9:07 am
The Institute
The group was now settling into the game room. Freddy sat down on the floor blocking the door while everyone else found a chair or place on the floor. It was a crowded bunch and they were all silently thankful no one had spotted them coming in. When they had reached the gates of the Institute the teen mutants had all stopped and looked at one another. No one had thought about what they would say if Logan, Scott, or one of the others had inquired as to what they were all doing together. Luckily, no one had spotted them, and they didn't plan to stay there long anyways.
"We need to get all the specifics worked out if this is going to work," Jubilee said, pulling out a spare notebook and clicking her pen. She looked around the room smiling at all the eager faces.
'Now that all the players are in this game, it's time to get ready for action.' she thought to herself. But then something felt wrong. She looked around the room, the change in her thoughts evident on her face and the others picked up on it.
"Jubilee…What's the matter" Bobby asked. Jubilee grabbed the sides of her face and let out a horrified gasp, making everyone in the room jump.
"Oh my gosh! We forgot about Kurt!" she squealed in disbelief.
Everyone looked around the room and took notice of the same observation Jubilee had just come across. No one moved, unsure of what to say or do.
Pietro swallowed down his nerves,
"So where is the fur-ball anyways?" he asked.
"I don't know... I haven't seen him all morning." Evan said as he gave glances to his fellow housemates. Bobby, Ray, Sam and Jubilee all shrugged and shook their heads. They didn't know either. All eyes were on Jamie.
"Don't look at me, I just know he got up and left before Kitty got up. She was looking for him this morning and the Professor said he went out." Jamie said.
An overwhelming sense of relief filled the room.
"Hey! What about the Professor? Won't he read our minds and figure out what is going on?" Pietro asked, the thought suddenly coming to him at the mention of the Professor.
"I don't think he will, and even if he does, I don't see why he'd stop us. I think he'd just be thrilled that we have teamed up for once to do something." Ray said, he knew the brotherhood had a hard time trusting Xavier with his telepathy. Ray had to learn to trust him when he left the Morlocks to come to the Institute- he still felt on edge around the professor at times so he understood their thoughts toward him.
"Sure-And-what-about-mister-metal-bones?" Pietro asked.
"And Storm Yo." Todd asked.
"Hey, and that big furry guy?" Freddy added.
The x-men gave each other looks, Bobby had to bite his lip to keep from bursting out with laughter.
"My Aunt is out of the country picking up a new recruit and won't be back for a few more days." Evan explained.
"And Mr. McCoy is going to be in the control room all day. The computer system updates are taking forever." Jamie said a slight grin on his face.
"Logan is working on the X-Van in the garage; he won't be a problem as long as none of us do anything to cause trouble." Sam added.
"New recruit? Alright, new blood yo." Todd gave Pietro and Fred a smile, but only Fred returned it. Pietro waved his hand in front of Todd's face to shut him up.
"Yeah, whatever. So when are we going to start this plan of ours." He asked, standing up, if the room wasn't so crowded he would have been running around like normal. He wished they could have this meeting outside.
Jubilee pulled out her cell phone. "Right now if we can decide on a restaurant." she said, pulling up her contact list.
"It should be someplace casual, but nice enough for a date." Bobby said, "The pizza parlor isn't good enough. What else is around there?"
Ray stood up, went to the bookcase, and grabbed one of the spare phone books that were in various rooms of the mansion.
Sam had a look of deep thought on his face, but he wasn't thinking along the same lines as the others. Something else had caught his mental awareness, he seemed to be calculating something on his fingers.
"Feel like sharing-something with-the-rest-of us?" Pietro asked raising an eyebrow fidgeting in his seat. He earned more looks from the group than Sam.
Sam stopped his train of thought, and ran his hand through his hair, a bit embarrassed about being put on the spot.
"No, sorry… Do you think they'd like that new malt and burger place that opened last week?" he was silently relieved that his brain had decided to keep working.
"The one with the 50's theme?" Evan asked.
"Is there another malt and burger place that-just-happened-to-open-up-last-week-that-we-should-know-about-Evans?" Pietro asked, not even trying to slow down his speech anymore. "I-say-that-place-will-be-as-good-as-any. Any objections?"
The others didn't even have time to think of their response.
"No. Okay-then-that's-settled. Sparks-mind-giving-the-girls-a-ring?"
"Uh…okay." Jubilee said. 'Sparks?!' was the thought on her head as she flipped down the list of names. "Who should I call?" she asked.
"Rahne said to call her and pretend to be her mom or something." Evan said sharply.
"Does it-matter-as-long-as-it-isn't Kitty she calls?" Pietro asked starting to walk around the room, he couldn't run, but he had to move.
"Cool it Maximoff." Evan gave him a glare from his armchair as Pietro passed by.
"Why-don't-you-just-shut-up-or-better-yet-make-me-why-don't-ya?"Pietro snapped back.
"Why don't you both cool it, or I'll cool you both right down." Bobby said, icing up his left hand.
Pietro stopped in his tracks and him and Evan, along with most of the others in the room stared at him and blinked.
The boys all burst out with laughter, except Bobby who crossed his arms and sulked in his seat.
"Would you guys shut-up and sit down Pietro, It's ringing." Jubilee snapped her fingers at him, a small set of sparks flying out of them, and pointed to the seat he had been in on the couch with Bobby, Todd, and Sam. Pietro and the others quickly stopped laughing, looking at the highly annoyed and serious look on her face. He sat down, feeling awkward.
"Oh sure, take her seriously. She didn't even threaten you." Bobby snapped in a loud whisper over Sam at Pietro.
"She didn't have to yo. That was just scary." Todd supplied his thoughts, supporting his teammate.
"I have learned never to mess with girls who harbor fire power when they look like that." Pietro explained, he didn't need Todd's help.
There was awkward silence as they all had visions of Boom Boom in one of her moods. There was a united shudder throughout the room.
"Hey Rahne, its Jubilee. We got the brotherhood boys here to help. No, don't believe the others, they are actually quite nice."
"What!" Pietro squeaked in an equal mix of horror and shock.
"She's kidding right?" both Evan and Todd said, though Todd had his usual 'yo' at the end of his question. Jubilee ignored the wide-eyed stares she was receiving from the boys and continued her conversation.
"Okay so you need to get Kitty to go to the….hang on…" she looked at Sam, "What is the name of the place?" she asked holding the phone from her face.
"I don't know." Sam replied.
"The Rockin' Roller Diner" Ray said, fingering the restaurant's name in the phone book in disbelief.
--Silence--
"That's a joke right?" Pietro asked warily. He didn't think it could get any worse. There was no way Lance would ever go in a place with that title.
"Afraid not." Ray said, passing the phone book over, he didn't want to look at it anymore.
"Why what's wrong with it? It sounds like a fun place to eat." Jamie said, he had been so quiet the others jumped at the sound of his voice.
"HEY! JUBILEE! ANYONE THERE!? WHAT IS GOING ON??!!" the faint sound of Rahne's shouting broke the silence the others had been in, unable to form a proper response to Jamie's question. Jubilee placed the phone to her ear.
"Sorry, we have another detail to fix. I'll call you back." she hung up with a sigh.
"This isn't going too well is it?" Fred asked, stating aloud the thought that everyone shared, but no one else would say aloud.
"Here pass me the phone book yo. I'll find a place that's cool yo." Todd suggested reaching for where it lay on the coffee table.
Pietro was faster than him though and stood up flipping through the pages and walking around the room.
The others rolled their eyes watching him, and listening to his occasional 'no-no-no''s and 'not a chance''s.
Before everyone completely blew up at him he sat back down with some pages clearly marked between his fingers.
"We have-some-good options here." he said to get everyone's attention and cleared his throat. He focused on speaking normally so everyone could hear him correctly. "There is Coffee Central- but that is pushing it with Lance, we might have a better chance with the diner. There is Granite Tower- it is suppose to have a nice sandwich, salad, and soup menu selection. Then we have Dragon Dynasty or Bamboo Palace for some Asian food. And then the Pizza Station, but I think that was already disqualified."
"What kind of food would Lance be in to?" Ray asked, honestly not knowing. He knew Kitty would prefer the first two or the pizza place before the Asian ones for food choices since she was a vegetarian.
"Lance and us aren't picky eaters, we just don't have the cash to eat fancy." Fred responded.
"I like the sound of that Granite Tower place. Kitty would get a salad and Lance could order a sandwich or something." Jubilee said.
It was settled, they all agreed and let Jubilee make the call to Rahne as they gathered themselves up and headed outside. They would have to walk to that part of town, and besides Pietro, that would mean it would take awhile to get there.
