And here we meet the Bamfs~! Finally!
For those who have never read X-Men comics (especially recent ones) just imagine chibi Kurts the size of house cats. That's a bamf.
Gared, thanks for the fav this time!
Complicated, thanks for the compliment! I never quit my fics, though sometimes they might seem like I did. Work and life can sometimes take up all of my time, so I apologize in advance if I suddenly start going slow.
I own nothing you recognize as canon in any X-Men universe.
*~Because Being Together is Enough~*
Chapter Four: Bamfs
The next day, Kurt was stretching out on the lawn. As a previous circus acrobat, he knew good stretches could help unused muscles. Since he couldn't do any hard work, Kurt figured he might as well do some yoga.
That, and he thoroughly enjoyed watching the students get a thrashing from Wolverine's training session. It was nice to not be on the receiving end of that punishment for a change.
This week's intense session consisted of an obstacle course, and sprinkled in among the obstacles were opponents: Beast, Storm, Jean, Cyclops, and Wolverine himself.
Bobby had already gotten thrashed by Cyclops. Jamie was trying to hold his own against Beast—which was really hilarious to watch—and Ray had just run in to Storm. Wolverine had yet to pop up, and Kurt could see Jean waiting for someone to pass her station.
A little movement caught Kurt's eye. It wasn't like the dynamic movement of the training session. It was small, but deliberate. Nightcrawler turned and cocked his head.
A tiny, blue, fuzzy thing crawled over to Kurt. He noticed it looked a lot like him—blue and fuzzy, with a little devil's tail, six fingers and toes, and glowing yellow eyes.
"Was ist…?" Kurt held out a hand to the mini-Kurt. "Hallo, little thing," he called. "Vhat are you doing here? Vhat even are you?"
The litte Kurt cocked his head. "Bamf?"
"Bamf?" Kurt repeated. "Is that your noise? Or your name?"
"Bamf," it answered.
Kurt picked it up and placed it on his lap. "Noise it is, then. Do you have a name?"
The creature tilted its head again.
"Um…I guess not…" He looked to the sky for a moment. "You know, you're fuzzier than me. How about Fuzzy?"
It wrinkled its nose.
"Ja, you're right. Too much like my nickname. How 'bout Furball?"
The creature's tail wagged. "Bamf!"
"Furball it is! Furball the…the bamf!"
"Bamf!"
It purred and started rubbing against Kurt like a cat. Then, it curled up in his lap. "Aw," Kurt cooed. "You're so cute." Then, he frowned. "Too cute. You'll take all the ladies from me with the cuteness, dude!"
The bamf's tail flicked in recognition, but otherwise it didn't move. Kurt patted it on the head.
"Kurt, what'cha got there?"
Kurt looked up and saw Kitty heading for him. He gestured to the bamf. "His name is Furball. I don't know where he came from, but he went right up to me."
Kitty's eyes widened. "What is that?"
"I call it a bamf," Kurt explained.
She looked at it skeptically. "So, is this how you reproduce, Kurt? Because the way I see it, either, like, you and Amanda had taken a big step in your relationship or you actually, like, reproduce asexually."
Kurt stuck his tongue out. "Very funny."
"Elf, what the Hell is that?" Wolverine stalked towards them, a weird look plastered on his face. "Did you and your girlfriend do somethin' I should know about?"
Kurt threw his arms into the air as everyone within a mile turned to look at what had gotten Wolverine's attention. "Nein, it isn't my child! It's some sort of creature! He came right up to me!"
"How do you know it's a male?" Bobby asked.
Kurt shrugged. "The nose knows, man." He held up the bamf and examined it. "And um…I don't see anything to suggest, but then again I don't want to touch down there."
Logan sniffed the air. "Definitely male, kid. Now that I've got a good sniff…" He looked around, then gestured towards a couple of bushes near the mansion. Bobby took the hint and shot a few icicles in that direction.
About ten bamfs exploded from the bushes. Kurt's eyes widened when they all skittered towards him. Every single one of them looked like a miniature version of Kurt, just like Furball. And every single one of them reached him and started to snuggle up against him.
"Ach!" he cried. "Vhy are there so many of these things? Vhere did they come from?"
Storm picked one up. The bamf squealed and teleported out of her grip, landing next to Kurt.
"They even have your powers," Jamie said with a gasp.
Logan growled. "I don't like these things. Somethin' don't smell right about 'em."
Furball yawned, snuggling deeper into Kurt's lap. The other bamfs kept wandering around Kurt, keeping to a foot radius and preventing anyone else from coming close.
Kitty braved picking up one. That bamf didn't mind and actually purred at her. Kitty smiled. "Aw, they're all so cute. Are they all boys, though?"
Kurt and Logan sniffed, and confirmed that all eleven bamfs (including Furball) were indeed male. It was weird to acknowledge, considering all of them seemed to be as smooth as Ken dolls.
"Then I get to name this one," Kitty announced. She examined her bamf thoroughly. "You guys don't look much different from each other, though. Maybe if we did something with your hair."
The bamf tilted its head and blinked at her with big, yellow eyes.
The other bamfs seemed to get the hint that the other people near Kurt weren't so bad. One was even bold enough to explore around Logan. He kicked it away, but the bamf took that as a challenge and teleported onto the gruff man's shoulder.
"Aw, he, like, totally likes you, Mr. Logan," Kitty squealed.
Wolverine grumbled, trying to get the bamf off. The bamf held on and looked indifferent to anything Logan tried.
Another bamf went over to Storm. Kurt figured this was the same one that had teleported out of her grip earlier. Storm smiled and cradled it in her arms, stroking its back like one would do to a cat. The bamf cried out softly in delight, its tail wagging.
The bamfs had all seemed to choose a person to cuddle. Beast was examining his own, which squeaked at the exploring huge hands. Jean cooed at hers, Bobby made his bamf's fur stand on end with frost (it didn't seem to mind), Rogue allowed one to sit near her leg, just close enough to brush against the stockings she wore, Jamie was already hatching ideas on games to play with his, and Ray was hesitantly stroking the bamf that had chosen him, his powers inadvertently making its fur fluff up and sparkle.
Only one did not have a person to choose, so it sat next to Kurt and yawned.
As all of this went down, a group of red creatures—miniature Kurts in red—watched from different trees and bushes, downwind of the one called Wolverine. They watched as their blue brothers latched on to the humans without care. One red one harrumphed at the sight, but silently considered this to be a safe way to watch over Kurt Wagner. The blue brothers would watch his friends from the inside, while the red brothers kept their eyes peeled for danger from afar in the shadows.
Their master had said to keep a close eye on him and his X-Man family. He didn't specify how.
Two months later, the bamfs were a normal everyday part of life in the X-Mansion. Though they seemed to like to travel in a group when creating mischief, each one favored staying near the X-Man of their choice during everyday activities—school and missions excluded, of course.
The one bamf that hadn't latched on to anyone the first day found refuge in the Professor, who was very surprised to find a miniature Kurt rifling through his things that afternoon. After an initial scolding, the bamf was more cooperative and stuck to Xavier like glue.
Logan's bamf apparently liked his choice of drink, stealing a swig every now and again every time the man bought alcohol secretly to the school. Somehow, it had learned how to say whiskey, which gave it its name—Whiskey. The Professor found out about Logan's secret alcohol because of this vocabulary word, though, so Logan was not pleased.
The others got along well with everyone. The Professor and Jean, though, had tried scanning their minds for any suspicious intentions. The only one that had any clues was Furball's mind: Xavier caught a little memory of a giant shadow ordering Furball and a large group of bamfs to watch over Kurt and his family of X-Men, and to alert him should Kurt end up extremely hurt.
The Professor had not told anyone other than Storm and Wolverine about this, saying that it was likely that Azazel had somehow cloned Kurt and created the bamfs. For what greater purpose, other than observing, he did not yet know.
"What worries me," he said, "is that 'Furball' had been one amongst many. Eleven blue bamfs, the ones we know of, and nine red."
"Red?" Ororo echoed. "There are red ones?"
The bald man nodded. "I sense them wandering the grounds, but their barriers are more powerful, so I cannot probe their minds. They seem to be older than the blue ones."
"If it's red an' blue we're talkin' about," Logan growled. "Ya think the ol' man cloned himself?"
"I've no idea. We'll have to keep a close eye on these bamfs. Their orders are to observe, for now. So, we shall do the same."
He didn't mention that beyond the shadow in Furball's memories squirmed a hoard of red bamfs, all crawling on any and all surfaces. They didn't look sinister or evil, but such a large group made the Professor very uneasy. Where had they come from?
And what were they for?
At the beginning of the bamf invasion, far away, in an undisclosed location, a red man sat at a dinner table. An iPod was hooked up to some mini speakers, and Carmen was playing softly in the background. The man ate his breakfast slowly, enjoying the flavors of his omelet and reading the Bayville newspaper.
A red bamf sat on the table, patiently waiting to report. Though the bamfs could not speak many words beyond their namesake, Azazel understood them well enough. He didn't know how he knew their language. Why question it when it wasn't a problem?
"Nachat," he said in Russian. (Begin.)
"Bamf, bamf bamf, bamf!" The red creature squawked away in its single-word language.
Azazel cracked a smile at how the blue bamfs had assimilated themselves into the mansion. Rarely did something amuse him nowadays—this was pretty funny. The blue bamfs were a recent acquisition, much younger than their red brothers, and much more hyper. It made sense they would seek a less boring way to observe Kurt.
"Bamf! Bamf bamf bamf!"
Mind probing? No matter. Azazel had no evil intentions in this. Eventually, he'd take the red bamfs out of the picture entirely and let the blue bamfs stay with Kurt. Once he found the X-Men capable of taking care of the boy, he'd stop being so careful.
That reminded him.
"Where is your counterpart?" he asked. "The one I told to observe—?"
Another red bamf 'ported onto the table. It started squeaking quickly, clearly flustered.
Azazel wrinkled his nose. The place this bamf was describing—a boarding house for some group called the Brotherhood—sounded very unpleasant. And disgusting. The person it was sent to observe was not staying there anymore, so Azazel told the bamf to not go back again. The bamf was very relieved, and hopped down from the table to join its brethren elsewhere.
The other one, the one leading the group at Xavier's, flicked its tail patiently. Azazel nodded. "Good work. Should anything major pop up, immediately find me. Otherwise, report back next week."
The bamf nodded, stole a piece of bacon off of Azazel's plate, and 'ported away. The man would not snap at it for such behavior. It deserved something to compensate for its troubles of 'porting a long distance. He assumed the others at the mansion had their own ways of making it work, anyway.
He continued reading his newspaper, taking a swig of his coffee. "Kurt is safe. Good. Xavier is suspicious. Nothing new. And Raven is missing." He took another swig. "Also not new. That woman can be such a snake sometimes."
He folded up the newspaper and finished his breakfast. "Quite literally."
A/N: So, to explain pronouns:
It is my belief that bamfs (as seen in Amazing X-Men: the Quest for Nightcrawler and beyond) are male, but a sort of 'neutral' male. Meaning? They're as smooth as Ken dolls, but are male in scent and actions. So, they can run around nakie without flashing anyone innapropriately.
On that note, I, as the narrator, will refer to bamfs as 'it'. The characters will be saying 'he' sometimes to refer to a specific bamf like Furball. Sorry for the confusion, but that's how it's going to go. :)