THE BET: Beginning
Disclaimer : I do not own X-men Evolution or any of the related characters.
Story line:
The X-kids have been driving the adults insane with their misbehavior, Logan challenges the Professor that he can get them to behave better than Charles, but the kids seemed determined to prove him wrong.
Chapter Nine:
Day One
Lunch time 11:00am
After the disaster that had come from sending the kids to the store, Logan decided to make lunch himself instead of assigning one of the kids. He was in the middle of boiling the noodles (since ramen noodles were the only thing he could make at the moment) when he received a call from the store.
"Hello, is this the Xavier Institute?"the voice on the other end asked.
"... When I answered the phone I said 'Xavier's'... what else would this be?" Logan responded after glaring at the phone.
"We had an incident this morning,involving a boy banned from our location, as well as a girl who made a scene. The clerk who rang up the Xavier's order said that she saw your staff member talking to these two just before checking out."
"First of all, that girl is a student not staff. Secondly just because she talked to someone don't mean she was involved somehow."
"Security footage shows they all left together in a van marked Xavier's Institute."
"Are you accusing my student of something sir? Because I can assure you only the girl in question is on our rolls. Perhaps she gave these other kids a ride home? After all that would be the nice thing to do."
"I'm afraid we are going to have to charge you for the damages."
"Fine. Whatever."
"Also, both of the two mentioned before are banned from the location, though the boy already was."
"Okay."
"The other two are also on probation status, which is to say when they come in they will be watched."
"Wait didn't you just say that she didn't do anything wrong? And now you're going to punish her for being in the store at the same time as someone else and giving them a ride? That's discrimination! You're just punishing her for being a mutant!"
"She's a mutant?"
"Like you didn't already know that! NONE of us will be shopping at your store in the future! "
Before the man could respond Logan hung up on him. Now he had to figure out a good excuse for not shopping in the local grocery store that didn't involve telling Xavier anything that just happened. He was trying to think of a good excuse when he remembered the noodles. Luckily they had only slightly over cooked, so he called the kids to lunch, before heading to the office to make a new shopping list and think of a valid excuse for Charles.
He had just sat down to write his list when Scott knocked on his door. With a heavy sigh he set down his pen and told the boy to come in. Scott entered and stood there for a moment waiting for Logan to invite him to sit. When Logan just stared at him, he decided it would be for the best not to further irritate their current leader.
"Are you sure it's wise to have the Brotherhood unattended in the kitchen? What if they're up to something?" Scott asked, more out of a sense of obligation as team leader than actual concern...right now he was preoccupied and wasn't concerned with anything beyond getting his game back. Which was his real reason for bothering Logan. He was the distraction.
"They can't possibly cause trouble in a roomful of X-men , with me twenty feet away." Logan said, though he was not nearly as confidant as he sounded.
"They could start a fire. Or kidnap one of us. Or cause a riot. Or steal our secrets. Or replace one of us with a shape shifter for their own plans. Or-"
"Enough! What's the likelihood any of that could ever happen?"
"All of it already happened before!" Scott said smugly crossing his arms.
"When did they ever catch our kitchen on fire" Logan said trying to regain control of the conversation.
"Just before I knocked. That what I came to tell you." Scott said.
"What?! Why didn't you open with a fire in the house?!" Logan demanded as he jumped to his feet and ran from the room.
Logan ran directly to the kitchen, stopping only to grab a fire extinguisher, and rushed into the room fully expecting the worst at this point. He was shocked however at the amount of damage. Which was to say there wasn't actually any damage. There was a slight scorch mark just behind the stove. The kids were all sitting around the table as if nothing was amiss, despite the smell of smoke.
Logan looked directly at John and said. "What did you do?"
"I put out the fire that you started mate." John said proudly.
"I'm not the fire-starter here!"
"Neither is John, he manipulates fire. He doesn't start it. Besides you started the fire by leaving an oven mitt on a hot burner." Wanda said.
"...I did no such thing!" Logan said, not sure at all but not willing to let them have a win either. If they won once they would start to walk all over you. Look at Charles!
Logan decided that the easiest way to win this argument was to get out of it before any of them tried any further counter-arguments. So he announced they were all grounded for the evening and walked out of the room amid their protests. He did notice that neither Scott nor Jean had been in the kitchen, so instead of returning to his office he went in search of the pair.
Scott was standing just outside of the kitchen, to distract Logan further by continuing his complaints about their house guests. Scott trailed after Logan complaining loudly about the brotherhood and acolytes until Logan yelled that he was joining the others in grounding. Scott felt it was worth it because Jean informed him just then that she had smuggled the game out and left the box so Logan wouldn't know. Logan was about to follow Scott, a little suspicious of the boy's behavior, when he heard a loud crashing in the direction of the rec room. As soon as Logan looked in the direction, Scott slipped around the corner.
Logan stood in the hall, undecided for a moment on which issue to address first, when he heard whispering from the rec room... clearly it was the bigger issue at the moment. Whatever Scott was up to...well Logan assumed it did not involve property damage, whatever Jamie and Rhane were up to sounded expensive, and possibly irreplacable.