Chapter Nine: X-Babies, Part Three

Jubilee watched the clock anxiously. One more minute. She watched as the clock ticked from the two to the four to the six. Half a minute more. Forty, fifty. The last ten seconds were the longest. Jubilee tapped her fingers on the counter and watched the clock tick the last ten seconds slowly. Very slowly.

Finally, the clock ticked eight. The minute hand moved a millimeter to the twelve.

"Yes," Jubilee said quietly as she stood up from the kitchen counter and made her way over to the phone.

Five rings, and no answer. That might not have been good news, but it was good news for Jubilee. She could prove herself now, to the X-Men, to show them that she was just as good as the New X-Men, despite her lack of training for the past few months. She had trained on her own. And she was better than the New Mutants. Rahne and her were both much better than the New Mutants, both of them had been training longer, it was unfair to make them train with the New Mutants, when they had already learned the stuff that M, Mirage, Karma and Wither were learning now.

Jubilee hung the phone back on the wall, and then went out into the hallway. She climbed the large marble stairs to the Mansion's second story, where all of the bedrooms were. She walked to the second hallway, then down that hallway to the third door on the right. Jubilee knocked, one, two, three times. She waited for half a minute, before finally, Shan answered.

"They didn't pick up?" She asked, sounding slightly worried.

Jubilee shook her head and bit her lip to keep from smiling. "Nope. Now it's our turn to go find them. Suit up. . .and, I hate to say it, but tell Monet too."

Shan nodded, a little uneasy, and closed the door, off to get on her New Mutants uniform, and to tell Monet.

Jubilee turned and walked a few feet to the door right across the hall and knocked on it. Mirage answered.

"Oh. . .hi," Danielle said. "Is it really our time?"

Jubilee nodded. "Yep. I tried to call and nobody answered." Danielle nodded. "Meet you in the garage in ten, then."

She closed the door, and Jubilee moved to a different hallway. The boys' hallway. There was only one New Mutant residing there now. She felt a little bad for him, being the only boy on the New Mutants team, and for the power he had. Kevin was his name, codenamed Wither appropriately. Kevin was like Rogue in many ways - his power wouldn't let him get close to any person, or anything else organic, for that matter. By his touch, anything organic would decompose. Anything. Even clothes. So the Professor and Beast had made special clothes for him, ones that wouldn't disintegrate every time he tried to put them on. They also gave him special gloves, made out of the same material as his clothes, so that if he accidentally touched someone or something, it would fall to pieces in his hand.

Jubilee knocked on the door that was first on the right. She waited, her arms folded over her chest. Finally, she heard rustling, and the clicking of the door, and Kevin answered. He didn't say anything, just looked at her for whatever she had to say.

"Um, get suited up, we go look for the X-Men," Jubilee said, feeling slightly awkward because of his silence. But it was normal. She'd only heard him talk a few times.

Kevin nodded and slowly closed the door.

Jubilee sighed and then went back into the other hallway, the hall were most of the girls' dorms were, and walked into her room without knocking, of course. Roommates never knocked. Rahne was sitting on her bed, reading a magazine and listening to a green iPod. She bopped her head a little with the music, but not as much as, say, Jubilee herself would have. Jubilee normally rocked out along with her iPod.

Jubilee walked over and stood beside Rahne's bed, then pulled out the earphones from her roommate's ears.

Rahne growled, much like a dog, and looked up at Jubilee. Her face softened a bit.

"What 'tis it, girl?" Rahne asked the Chinese girl in her strong Scottish accent.

"Get suited up, we're going to find the X-Men," Jubilee said, moving away from Rahne's bed and to the dresser. She opened up the bottom drawer and pulled out her uniform, then Rahne's uniform, which was slightly smaller. Jubilee tossed Rahne her uniform, and produced her own from the drawer.

Rahne caught her uniform expertly. "So they didnae call?"

Jubilee shook her head. "Nope. I think something's up."

"How do you know we'll do any better?" Rahne asked, turning her iPod up, and standing up from the bed.

"I don't," Jubilee replied. "Let's just hope that we will."

~X~X~X~X~X~X~

Forty minutes later, the second X-Van pulled up on the side of the road, in front of Forge's place. The first one was parked right in front of them, and it didn't look tampered in any way, except for previous beatings with mutant powers.

Monet stepped out of the car from the driver's seat, and Mirage, who had been sitting in the passenger's side seat, hopped out behind her. Jubilee, Wolfsbane, Wither and Karma got out after, from the two sets of backseats.

Jubilee looked up at the concrete building, getting a weird feeling. Did she hear … crying inside. Like, baby crying? Jubilee shook her head to get the weird thought out of her mind.

Rahne cocked her head, as she was hearing it too. And her ears rarely failed her. "Yeh 'ear that?"

Jubilee knit her eyebrows. "Yeah. . .that's strange. Let's go check inside."

They entered through the glass door, to the ringing of a shop bell. And the crying became more definite. Everyone heard it now. One, two, three babies crying.

Jubilee knit her eyebrows once more, Rahne cocked her head, and all the rest did something similar, looks of confusion on their faces.

Finally, Karma was the one to sneak forward. She went out into the hallway, the others following her lead. When she got in the hall, she started running, for she saw something startling at the end: a baby. A baby with light brown hair, and curious blue eyes . . .

As Karma got closer, the baby looked up and laughed gleefully, clapping it's tiny, chubby hands. Then, Karma felt her feet slip from underneath her, and she hit the ground hard. But the sliding didn't stop there. Karma slid the rest of the way down the hallway on her back. She was sliding on a cold, hard surface. Naturally, the other New Mutants went sliding as well. It was rather comical, six super powered teenagers in superhero uniforms sliding on the ground. One ice. That had just seemed to coat the floor.

The New Mutants crashed into the wall at the end of the hallway, each narrowly missing hitting the baby. They all groaned and sat up slowly, rubbing various parts on their bodies that now had bruises or just simply ached from the impact.

Karma sat up and looked over at the babe, then crawled carefully toward him. She grabbed him off of the ground and slid into a room, Forge's lab. Inside, she was met with chaos.

Someone tried to nail her in the head with a book. Papers that were supposed to be on tables were now strewn on the floor. A glass mug that used to hold coffee in it was now in pieces on the floor, the coffee drying on the ground. One particular invention was broken into a few different pieces on the ground. A very important invention . . .

Of course, the biggest worry was all of the babies in the room. A blue baby with elfish features and a demon's tail was hanging on a lamp on the ceiling, swinging back and forth. Two others were having a duel of fighting, chubby fists. A large, hairy baby was running the metal claws coming out of his hands along the ground. A baby dressed in seventies clothes that was sitting on one of the tables, crying, and two others, a baby with white hair and a baby with cocoa skin, had joined in.

"Guys, you might want to see this!" Karma called out to the rest of her teammates.

The New Mutants scrambled into the room, some falling onto the ground, but eventually making their way in.

"Whoa. . ." Jubilee muttered quietly, looking around at the scene. "This is . . . Wow."

Suddenly, a blue ball of fur appeared on her shoulder in a cloud of sulfur-like smoke. Jubilee gasped and grabbed the thing on her shoulder. She held it out in front of her and looked at it. It was a baby, the small blue baby that had been hanging from his tail on the light. She grinned a little bit, realizing who the baby was, but also finding him cute in a weird way.

The baby made a giggling noise and smiled, waving it's arms in the air. Jubilee grinned and brought it closer to her chest, looking down at it then up at the others.

"Okay, hopefully Kurt doesn't teleport out of my hands," she said with a grin. "We need to find the machine that did this to them. . .and fast. Can't have the X-Men stay babies for too long."

M looked doubtful. "We should call the Professor."

"No," Jubilee insisted. "He's busy. We can't both him with. . .this little thing. We can handle this on our own."

M crossed her arms over her chest. "Fine. Then we need to look for the machine to turn them back to normal." Jubilee hated to agree with her. " . . . Yeah, we do."

So they began looking, each of them going in a different direction. Jubilee searched near a table farthest from the door, the Nightcrawler baby still in her hands. He was being pretty quiet, only making giggling and spurting noises every so often.

As she was searching the table, she looked down at him once more. The blue babe stared at her with his curious yellow eyes. He smiled again and spurted a little spit, and even though some got on Jubilee, she had to smile. A baby just being a baby. He was so cute.

"You know, I could get used to having you like this all the time, Elf," she said to the baby with a grin.

He looked up at her with wide, a little bit confused eyes, as if he was surprised that she had just spoken. He cocked his head and leaned in closer to her chest, like a frightened baby would. Or just a baby that wanted attention.

"Awe, you guys, can we keep him like this?" Jubilee asked, turning around to the others. They were all sitting around something. Something metal. That was broken on the ground.

Jubilee walked over to them. "Hey, guys, what did you find?"

"I think this might be the machine," M said shortly as she began to examine one of the pieces. The metal was broken into three pieces, and there were even more colorful buttons and small parts scattered around the small area of the floor.

Jubilee bent down and picked up one of the pieces off of the ground with one hand, while the other still held the Nightcrawler baby, examining it.

"Don't pick it up!" M snapped, slapping it out of her hand. It clanked to the ground loudly. Some of the babies in the room looked over, and one began waddling it's way over to them. One of the babies that had been having a chubby fist duel with another. This baby had bright blonde hair, almost unreal, and a dyed streak of orange on the front of his hair. The other baby, a dark one with slightly matted curly hair, followed him over. The curly haired baby almost tackled the one with the dyed hair to the ground, but the lighter skinned one dodged it and laughed gleefully when the other baby hit the ground with a thud.

Mirage gasped, seeing the display, and walked over to the two babies. She picked up the curly haired one with her right arm, and the one with the flamboyant hair in her left.

Mirage looked between the two. "Ray and Roberto?"

Jubilee looked up. "Oh, wow." She laughed. "I know they're all babies, but it's even better when you say it."

The Nightcrawler baby hit her chest with his tubby fist, like he knew what she was saying and was offended by it.

Jubilee looked down at the babe in her arms. "Hey now, that's not nice." She grabbed his fist, as it was about to hit her again. "No, babe, sorry."

"You guys, 'tis gonnae take a while t' fix," Wolfsbane clarified. She had gone against M's wishes, and had started to pick up and examine all of the pieces, little and big. "Meh mu'ter is a scientist, but she knows a little 'bout machinery. Taught me some…and I can tell that we might be in trouble with this one."

"It can't be that hard to fix," M interrupted, taking the piece of metal that Wolfsbane had in her hand out of it.

"It 'tis," Wolfsbane growled, and snatched the piece out of M's hand. "Now, if yeh want to help meh, yer more than welcome. We need to gather this all up, take it back to the Mansion. There must be some stuff there we can use to put it back together. . ."

She looked around the room. Wolfsbane's eyes drifted from the Nightcrawler baby, to the mini-sized Ray and Roberto, then to all of the rest of the babies; the infant dressed in the seventies clothes, Forge. The two babies with the cocoa skin, no longer crying, but sniffling, Storm and Magma. The large, hairy baby with the metal claws, Wolverine. A lone baby sitting in the corner, seeming to glare at everything, Rogue. The baby with the ponytail, Shadowcat. The ice baby, Iceman. The smart looking blue and hairy baby sitting on a table, examining test tubes. The large baby that was now turned into metal, Colossus. And the other two New Mutants that were reduced to babies, Multiple and Cannonball, who were displaying their powers, which they all still had, in one of the far corners of the room.

Wolfsbane sighed. "And yeah, we have to bring the babies home."

"And get some diapers," Jubilee said, looking down with a disdainful expression to the baby Nightcrawler. He cocked his head at her.

Wolfsbane smirked. "Aye, that too."

"Oh wow, then we should get started now," Mirage said, with a little groan. Get them all into the van."

"Some of us should go to the store, and a couple go back to the Mansion," Jubilee suggested. "Each taking half of the babies."

Mirage sighed. "Okay. . .umm. . .take ones that shouldn't cause too much trouble. Umm. . .Rogue, Storm, Kitty. . .split up these two." She moved her arms up and down to indicate the babies Roberto and Ray, who were trying to reach across her chest to hit each other. "Take Roberto to the store. Bobby. . .and Hank."

"And the rest to the Mansion," Jubilee finished. "Okay. Umm. . .I guess I'll head to the store. Umm. . .I know how to drive. Just hope that they don't ask for a license. All I have is a permit. Who wants to come with me?"

"I guess I will," Mirage offered.

"Okay, and. . .?"

"Me, I guess," Karma said, standing up and still holding the baby known as Bobby in her hands.

"Good, so M, Wolfsbane and Wither will head back to the Mansion and start working on the machine," Jubilee said, feeling great for taking control of the situation.

The others agreed, and soon, six New Mutants took turns going into the bathroom and changing into their everyday street clothes, Jubilee with her yellow coat and Mirage with her checkered button up top and jeans.

They then rounded up all of the babies. Jubilee handed off little Nightcrawler to Wolfsbane, and the little blue baby didn't look too happy about being taken away from his new friend. Mirage gave Monet Ray, but Karma kept Bobby in her hands, and picked up the baby known as Rogue. Jubilee picked up the heavy Hank baby, and the light Kitty baby. Mirage picked up Storm, as well as still holding Roberto. Monet now carried Ray, Peter and Amara. Wolfsbane had the babies Wolverine, Forge and Nightcrawler. And last but not least, Wither had taken up Jamie and Sam. He looked uncomfortable about touching them, but once he picked up the first one without doing anything to it, he picked up the second one with a little more ease.

Finally, the New Mutants left Forge's lab, closing the door behind them.

~X~X~X~X~X~X~

It was nine PM. The last few hours had been ones of restlessness. There had been much arguing and shouting. It had only just started to calm down. Finally, there were only two more speakers to the mutant cause to the university, the first one remaining a mystery to most.

The man with the loud voice that had introduced every speaker came up to the microphone and began introducing the next speaker. He described the man as an "influential voice among his side in the mutant problem, said to be magnificent in his ways by his co-workers". Finally, when the man's name was said, Jean and Scott's hearts stopped. They froze, and their eyes drifted slowly to the stage. The Professor, even being a telepath, was slightly stunned, but didn't seem to show it.

Jean gasped and looked sideways at Scott as Roberto Kelly walked onto the stage, shaking hands with the broad man and taking his place behind the pedestal.

Scott's mouth formed into a tight line at the sight of their old principle, and his hands clutched the side of the table. He looked so angry, that at that moment, the mutant with the laser beams in his eyes looked just about ready to take off his glasses and shoot Roberto Kelly right off the stage and into the ceiling.

Roberto Kelly began to speak. "I know that I'm new around politics, but I feel that I have something to offer." He took a long, meaningful look around the room. "Something about the mutant problem. I was the principle at Bayville High School, where the first mutants were discovered." Maybe subconsciously, or not, he looked over at Jean, Scott and Professor X. "Soon, I quit my teaching position. Bayville and it's high school let these monsters coexist with our environment, with our children. They put their own children in danger with the risk of letting mutants attend public school. But I say, we should not put our deserving human university students in jeopardy because of a few dangerous mutants that think they can come in here with the humans!"

There were some shouts of approval for the first part of Roberto Kelly's speech. This only made Scott grip the table harder. Jean glanced over at him and put a calming hand on his shoulder. She was glad that Scott didn't have the power of super strength, because if he did, the table would have broken in half a long time ago, like a toothpick. Scott looked over at her, and his shoulder's relaxed at the sight of her, the touch of her gentle hand on his shoulder. He un-gripped the table and sat back, listening, but not wanting to listen, to the rest of the ex-principle Kelly's speech.

"I say that we should not let mutants corrupt our universities!" He shouted. "They've already done enough damage to our nation - and the world!" Behind him, a screen with a projector facing it showed images of mutants. The X-Men fighting of the Sentinels, fuzzy pictures of the X-Men fighting the Acolytes, a few from the Apocalypse incident. There were a few more, but surprisingly, not of the X-Men. Of other mutants. There was one of a girl, around fourteen years of age, with tanned skin, and two claws coming out of each of her hands. X-23. The X-Men knew her well. She had defeated all of them, except for Wolverine, in one night. The picture was obviously taken from a security camera, of her fighting some kind of machine. Another picture showed an Asian looking girl with purple hair, with a purple glowing kantana in her hand. There were a few more pictures of the Brotherhood, and then another mutant they didn't know. A man, aged in his early twenties. Knives of orange energy seemed to be flying at the screen from somewhere on his body.

The slideshow ended, and Kelly began to speak his final lines. "No mutants in our universities! They are dangerous to us all, and they have plagued our world enough! Not hear, not now!"

There was a loud applause and even a small standing ovation, before Kelly finally stepped off of the pedestal. He seemed to give Scott, Jean and the Professor a snide look before he went and took a seat in a chair far off to the right of the stage.

The broad man walked up to the microphone again. "Finally, we come to our last speech of the night, from Ms. Jean Grey."

Jean sighed deeply and stood up. Her boyfriend, Scott, squeezed her hand one last time and then let go, giving her an encouraging nod and smile.

Jean nodded back, then walked up, a little stiff. This was the most nervous that she had ever been. The redhead hadn't even been this anxious when she was talking to the crowd at Bayville High, six months earlier. For some reason, the aura in the school's auditorium at the time, though a little iffy, had been better than the aura the university was giving off.

Finally, the redhead mutant reached the pedestal, and brought the microphone down to her level. She spoke in a loud, strong voice, seemingly not affected by Robert Kelly's words.

"My name is Jean Grey," Jean began. In speech lessons with the Professor, she learned that it was normally customary to start off by saying her name. "I am a mutant, and attend Xavier's Institute. Mr. Robert Kelly said that all mutants are dangerous, and this is not the truth." That part she added in, just because she felt like she needed to. "Some of us might be, to people, but there are humans and mutants alike out there that are dangerous. The murders, the thieves, the criminals. But they are a mixture of mutants and humans, there is not just one side. Humans are not the good, mutants are not the bad, and vice versa. Either way, human or mutant, we are all people, despite our different abilities. Really, if you are a bad or good person, it depends on the way you act. At Xavier's, we learn to use our powers for good, to help people because of our newfound abilities, and also, to train with them so we won't hurt anybody. Not all mutants are evil, just like not all humans are evil. There's always a mix of good and bad."

She continued. "If you choose to let mutants attend universities around the country, then you are opening up a bright door for everyone. Please, consider it, think about this really hard, before you make your decision. Thank you, and goodnight."

Jean stepped down from the podium and then stepped off the stage, making her way back over to Scott and the Professor. Scott hugged her, while Professor X nodded approvingly. There were some scattered boos and whispers among the crowd, but they were quieter than with most of the other speeches.

"Well, I guess we go to the hotel, and wait until tomorrow to see the results," Scott said.

~X~X~X~X~X~X~

The two X-Vans headed different ways down the highway, Jubilee going to the store, and Monet going back to Xavier's.

While on the road, something happened that made Jubilee almost swerve off. There was a cloud of blue sulfur, and a baby was suddenly in her lap, laughing happily. The mischievous Nightcrawler baby.

"Watch the road!" Mirage screamed from the back, as one of the babies beside her started crying.

Jubilee breathed heavily in and out and looked down at the Nightcrawler baby with a stern expression before turning her eyes back onto the road. And just in time, too, for she almost hit a eighteen wheeler, but just managed to veer out of the way.

"Sorry, a Nightcrawler baby just poofed onto my lap!" Jubilee called back.

"Wait? Isn't Nightcrawler with Rahne?" Karma asked from even further back, the third row of seats.

"Well, he used to be!" Jubilee said. "No we're stuck with him."

Just then, the communicator on her side buzzed. Jubilee plucked it from her belt and threw it back to Mirage, who picked it up, turning away to keep it out of the reaching hands of the Roberto infant.

"Yeah?" She asked into it.

"Have you seen Nightcrawler?" A voice asked from the other end. It was a little shrill, naturally, and from a little bit of a scare. Monet. There was the sound of babies crying in the background. One wailed really loud, and there was the sound of metal scratching metal with a skint!.

"Yeah, he's riding with us now," Mirage said. "He just . . .teleported in here."

"Apparently missed me!" Jubilee called with a grin. "Didn't want to stay with you, Monet!"

You could practically hear the eye roll in Monet's voice on the other end. "Just wanted to make sure." And then there was a click, and the noise in the communicator turned to static. Mirage threw the communicator to the seat, and the Roberto baby grabbed it and started chewing on it.

The X-Van pulled up to one of Bayville's local supermarkets no more than five minutes later. Jubilee took the keys out of the car and it stopped humming.

"Okay, so one of us has to stay in here with the babies," Jubilee told Mirage and Karma. She turned around to face them, and put the Nightcrawler baby in the seat next to her, next to the baby Beast. "And it ain't gonna be me."

Karma and Mirage looked uneasy. Mirage turned back to look at her fellow New Mutant, who bit her lip and shrugged.

"I guess I will, if I have to," Karma said.

Jubilee nodded. "Okay, good."

"But at least take two of them," Karma pleaded. "I mean, I'm just one person. There's seven babies in this car!"

Jubilee sighed, and looked at the two babies that were sitting beside Mirage, Roberto and Storm. Roberto was still chewing on the black communicator with the yellow X on it with his two front teeth, the only two teeth he had in his baby state. Then Jubilee looked at the two babies in the passenger's seat, and finally squinted to see the infants sitting with Shan.

"Okay, we'll take Roberto and Rogue," Jubilee decided, trying to think of two that wouldn't cause too much trouble. The Rogue baby seemed to be very quiet and non-mischievous, and since the sun was out, Roberto couldn't turn on his powers. She doubted that, being a baby, he would be smart enough to find the stored energy in his body, if he even had any at the moment.

Shan nodded with relief that they would actually take two of the babies, and she handed Rogue up to Danielle, who made sure not to touch the baby's bare skin. Jubilee reached across the seat and picked up Roberto, then turned back and opened the door.

"'Kay, let's go," Jubilee said. "We'll only be a few minutes, Shan."

Danielle exited the car and shut the door, at nearly the same time that Jubilee shut hers. They walked towards the store, striking up a conversation about the incident and talking quietly about it. At one point, when an old man with a cane walked by, Jubilee changed the topic of their conversation to music, and when the man was out of earshot, their talking changed back to the baby incident until they reached the store. When they got next to a crowd of large people, the conversation immediately changed to movies.

Back in the van, Shan was having some troubles. Right when Jubilee left and closed the car door, Nightcrawler started crying, and the Kitty baby, as well as the Storm baby, joined in the chorus. The Hank baby just looked at them with an intelligent expression, his eyes portraying thoughts that they were acting stupid, like: Why are you crying? There's no reason, really.

Shan picked up the Kitty baby in her left arm, and the Bobby baby in her right, and moved up a seat, setting Bobby down, and picking up Storm.

When Bobby looked up and realized that he had been put down for Storm, he felt dejected, and started wailing, fat tears streaming down his cheeks. Karma picked him up and sighed, rocking all three of the babies on her lap.

Kurt still cried in the front seat of the car, but, an idea sparked in his mind. Of course, he was a baby, so who knew what he really was thinking, but suddenly, a cloud of blue smoke filled his place, and when it disappeared, he wasn't there anymore.

Karma saw this and groaned. She set the Bobby baby down once more, ignoring his cries, and yanked her communicator from her X-Belt and rung up Jubilee.

In the baby isle of the supermarket, Jubilee was picking out a few jars of baby food, because Jubilee and Danielle decided that the X-Babies, as they decided to call the newly turned babies when they were walking into the store, would be hungry. Danielle was putting some diapers and other baby changing needs when suddenly, there was a cry from the isle next to them.

"Demon! It's a demon! A monster baby!" A woman with a shrill voice yelled.

Instantly, Jubilee's eyes shot up to Danielle's. They locked eyes for a moment, before Jubilee started to run down the isle, hoping that Danielle stayed with the other two babies. Mirage might have followed her fellow New Mutant, if it wasn't for Jubilee's communicator, which was still in Roberto's mouth, buzzing. Roberto was so startled that he dropped to the communicator to the ground and just stared at it, before he started crying.

Danielle picked him up off of the cart and starting rocking him in her arms, were started to calm him down. The Native American girl picked up the black and yellow communicator and clicked a button, putting it to her ear.

"What?"

Shan's voice came through. "Umm. . .Danielle, is Nightcrawler with you guys again?"

"Jubilee just ran off to find him," Danielle said.

"Wait, what happened?" Shan asked, a little worried.

"Some woman is just complaining about a demon baby," Danielle said, trying to reassure her friend that everything was fine.

"Okay. . ." Shan said. There was a click, and then static silence. Danielle sighed and popped the communicator back in the cart. She put the Roberto baby back in as well, of course being more gentle than with the walkie-talkie.

During Danielle's and Shan's conversation, Jubilee went to rescue Kurt. The woman had already ran screaming from the isle, off to find someone to help her. Jubilee looked down the isle, worried for a minute. She'd never had a very close bond with Kurt, just a little friendship, but when he was a baby. . .things just seemed to be a lot worse if the X-Men and New X-Men were to get hurt while being infants. They seemed more innocent, and way more adorable, to cute to get kicked around like the mutants normally were.

Finally, Jubilee sighed and smiled a little bit, seeing Kurt's tail wagging from behind a display of Campbell's Soup. Jubilee ran over to him and picked him up off of the ground, just as the one security guard of the store and the woman turned the corner into the soup and other condensed foods isle.

"There he is!" The woman said, pointing at the blue infant in Jubilee's hands. "He just popped in out of nowhere in a cloud of smoke and -"

"Ma'am, please," the security guard said, putting a hand on her shoulder. He was a guy in his mid-thirties, actually pretty fit for just being mall security.

The guard looked at Jubilee. "That baby yours?"

"Umm, not technically mine, but I'm watching him," Jubilee said, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.

"Just make sure he doesn't do that again, okay?" The man asked.

Jubilee was generally surprised by his reaction. "Oh, yeah sure. He'll get a. . .spanking for that." She looked down at the Kurt baby in her arms. "That was bad! He's normally . . .better." Because of course, good wasn't exactly the word for it. "Sorry."

The man nodded. "It's okay. No harm done." He looked down at the woman, who still looked a little shocked, but also had a look of hatred in her eyes. "Right ma'am? No harm done. Just a little baby."

The woman glared at Nightcrawler, then to Jubilee. "He is a mutant, right?"

Jubilee rolled her eyes. "Yeah, he's not a demon, he's just a. . .baby."

"A mutant baby," the woman said with disgust, seeming to raise her head in a fashion that seemed to state that she was too good to be around the babe.

"And I'm a mutant too," Jubilee said, her eyes flashing. "And I'm gonna spark your butt out of this place if you say one more thing about it."

The woman's eyes widened. "Is that a threat?"

Jubilee rolled her eyes and started walking away. "Something like that," she muttered to herself, then called back to the woman, "Just don't mess with us, okay?"

There was a "humph!", and Jubilee heard the woman turn on her heals, back to her waiting basket of goods.

Jubilee walked down the isle, past all of the different brands of condensed soup, the canned fruits and vegetables, and other various canned items, before coming out into the wide isle were the meat was kept in freezers. She turned into the next isle to see Danielle coming toward her, pushing a cart filled with baby food and diapers and powder and other baby necessities.

"We going?" She asked, having overheard bits of the conversation that Jubilee had with the lady and the security guard.

"Yeah, let's get out of here," Jubilee said, and led the way to the check out counters.

~X~X~X~X~X~X~

When Jubilee, Shan and Danielle came back to the Mansion, they were greeted by chaos. Wither, more commonly called Kevin, was chasing a cluster of Jamie babies who were crawling every which way on the floor, trying to find the real one. Monet was flying around, gathering up Ray in her arms and almost getting shocked for it. The other babies were wandering around aimlessly, causing trouble.

Jubilee almost smirked and called, "Okay guys, get them all to the rec. room!" Monet and Kevin looked at her. Kevin nodded, while Monet seemed to want to give Jubilee a dirty look, but she followed the orders and started flying around - literally, using her power of flight - and gathered up Sam and Wolverine in her arms, along with Ray.

Eventually, the five mutant teenagers got all of the X-Babies rounded up and got them all into the rec. room. They made sure to keep them away from anything that would cause harm to them (mainly because the Forge baby got hit in the head with a book), so that meant keeping them away from the pool table, the bookshelf, and the T.V. remote. So, naturally, the New Mutants plopped all of the babies on the ground and turned on the T.V., to a station that purposely played little kid cartoons all day long. And that literally meant all day long, because the time was already nine thirty, when most little kids were supposed to be put to bed.

Shan and Danielle went into the kitchen to prepare food for the babies, while Jubilee, Monet and Kevin to watch over them.

Jubilee took the Nightcrawler baby in her hands, as well as a diaper and some other baby changing necessities, and brought him over to the ping pong table, where she set him down.

"Oh, gross," she said as she took off his clothes - right now, since he was a baby, it didn't matter.

Jubilee quickly washed him up and changed him as best she could, then brought the blue baby back to the couch, and sat him next to the Beast baby, who looked to be reading a short picture book, which, considering the age they all were, would have been amazing. But yet again, Beast was pretty much a genius when he was an adult, so why not when he was a baby?

"Any more diapers I need to change?" Jubilee asked Monet reluctantly.

"Check," Monet said, without taking her eyes off of the book that she was reading.

"You know, the three of us are supposed to be watching them, not the two of us," Jubilee said, narrowing her eyes.

Monet looked up, blinked, and put her book on her lap. "I don't see Kevin around."

Jubilee's eyes narrowed even more, and she looked around the room, first around the couch, then everywhere else.

She sighed exasperated. "Where'd he run off to?" She muttered to herself.

"I believe that he is chasing Logan around in the hallway," Monet said, using her powers of telepathy.

Jubilee sighed. "I'm gonna go get him. Stay here and watch the babies, will you?"

Ten minutes later, an exhausted Kevin and an exhausted Jubilee came back to the rec. room, prepared for trouble, but actually found the babies calm. Most of them had had their share of food, and a few were still nibbling on a little something. Some of them even looked ready to fall asleep.

"Oh, thank God," Jubilee said as she plopped down on the ground. Kevin led the Wolverine baby over to Shan, who started feeding him some mushed up baby food.

Two hours later, when most of the babies were asleep, save Wolverine, Nightcrawler and Jamie-of course-Rahne came into the rec. room, carrying the newly repaired machine of Forge's. She set it down on the ground and did a few last minute touch ups, and then looked to the other five New Mutants.

"I got it, now," she said. "Any time. I think. Hopefully. If not, the Professor and Jean will be able to figure it out." She offered a small smile at the end. The bags under her eyes and her expression made it seem like she was ready to pass out any minute.

"Wait!" Shan said. "I have to do something!"

She ran out of the room, and a few minutes later, came back holding a disposable camera. Shan went over to Nightcrawler, Wolverine and Jamie-who were watching Wow Wow Wubbzy-and took a few pictures of them, then took pictures of all of the rest of the babies.

"Just incase, you know, we need blackmail or something," she said. "Or . . .they're just going to be fun to have around."

Jubilee smiled mischievously. "Good idea. That'll be fun."

"We all ready, now?" Rahne asked as she turned the age dial to a weird suggestion, but found that it was actually the best one - normal.

There was a flash of white light, and the whole room was covered by it. When the light died down, all of the X-Men were sleeping or standing in the spots where they were when they were just babies.

Rahne sighed and smiled, then almost literally laid down and passed out.

~X~X~X~X~X~X~

"I can't believe they said no," Jean said quietly, her head buried in Scott's shoulder, her voice almost muffled by his shirt. "I'm not going to college."

Scott closed his eyes. He had let his anger out before, not on anyone, they had to be thankful. He rubbed her back as she cried into his chest.

"I know, Jean, I'm sorry."

The Professor, though he wouldn't show it, was angry and a little sad. He looked at Jean and Scott, Scott sitting in the driver's seat, and Jean sitting in the passenger's seat. It was the day after all of the speeches and drama, around eleven AM. They had woken up at seven to hear what the university had decided. . .and it was far from good news for mutants. No mutant was to attend college, not now, in the United States of America. This had also called attention to other countries, and they had heard that Australia and places in Europe were thinking about banning mutants from their universities as well.

They'd lost. The X-Men had lost. For once. It wouldn't be their biggest failure, but it was their first, and it would be hard one a lot of the students.

Scott climbed out of the car, leaving Jean to cry along, and helped the Professor in his wheel chair. They were, of course, back at the Mansion. Jean got out of the car, and walked to the Mansion in Scott's arms all the way, still sobbing, but her sobs were now much more of dry sobs - she had cried so much that she didn't think she'd ever be able to cry again.

They entered the house, and everything seemed fine, until they passed the rec. room. All three, even Jean, did a double take and went into the room. Five of the six New Mutants were passed out on the ground (Monet had gone back to her room). There were jars of baby food scattered in one corner of the room, and a trash bag with diapers in another.

Jubilee, Shan, Danielle, Kevin, Rahne. The Professor called out, telepathically in their minds.

Jubilee was the first to wake up, groggily. She looked up at the three and smiled.

"Boy, do we have something to tell you."

In the next installment of X-Men: Evolution: Season Five Mystique finally gets her revenge on Nightcrawler and Rogue! See what horrible things she has in store for the both of them! Meanwhile, the Brotherhood causes a distraction, causing havoc in the city of Bayville!