Disclaimer: Me no ownies X-Men.
Starr: I bet you are all surprised to see another chapter so soon.
Jessi: I'm surprised that you are so annoying, just sound of your happy voice gets on my nerves.
Starr: What happened to the 'e' at the end of your name?
Jessi: It pissed me off so I made it disappear… like I'll do to you if you don't stop talking and write.
Starr: Okie-dokie!
""
X-Men: Evolution: Picking up the Pieces
Chapter 10
A jet heading for an undisclosed spacecraft launch pad.
"So all you have to do is pull this trigger and keep the tank filled." Hank McCoy explained to the various teams of our favorite X-Men that sat in the plane, watching him. He warned, "You should have enough chocolate on you to do the job, but don't waste it."
"OK," Scott stood and looked over the twelve teams assembled. "When we get to launch pad, we will split into three groups of four teams. I will take my team and teams four, five and six. Jean will take her team and teams seven, eight and nine. Ten, eleven and twelve will go with Logan and team three. Got it?"
Mumbled assent filled the cabin.
"Good," Scott pulled out diagrams of the three ships that threatened the human way of life. "My team will take the ship to the left, Logan's team the center ship and Jean's team will take the one on the right. Our orders are shoot to kill. Any questions?"
Logan raised his hand, "Do we have to wear these retarded looking suits?" he looked down at himself at the almost skintight yellow spacesuit. With a few pockets and the large collar, the thing looked like a horrible mix between a clown outfit and a diving suit. "And does it have to be yellow? We'll stick out like a sore thumb."
"Yes, you do." Jean answered, "It will probably save your life when we get out there. This is the strongest material that we have on Earth right now."
Logan growled something that sounded like 'whatever' as the plane started to land.
Xavier's Mansion an hour before.
"There! I fixed the damn thing!" Damian stomped into a training room close to the Danger Room where the rest of X-13 was preparing to save the world.
Jenna nodded and continued to count bags that had been filled with coco powder. "Thanks. Damian? Could you help Chris and the others put these bags in the backpacks? Seventy-five in each pack."
Damian went over to where Chris, Celene, Mikale and Angel were putting bags into backpacks. All the while grumbling about girlfriends that were going to kill everyone because they trusted aliens.
Gabby and BB entered trough a small door at the back of the room. Both of them were not very happy because Jenna had forced them to wear masks. Gabby, a cloth medical mask. Burnt Bones, an industrial strength gas mask.
"Why do I have to wear this heavy contraption?" BB asked, "I understand that there are poisonous powders in the air, but why can't I wear a small mask like Gabby's?"
"Because," Jenna replied, "if Gabby inhales a little coco powder, all that happens is she gets sick or a few days. If you get a bit of this in your system, you die."
"Good reason." BB took a step closer to the door. "Are you ready to speak about the air ducts, Jenna?"
"Gabby take over for me. Will you?" Jenna put down the bags she was counting, and made a note on the clipboard at her elbow.
"What do you need to know about air ducts?" Rhiana came in with a cell phone in her hand, she had been trying to contact anyone at the White House.
"It's a critical point in my plan." Jenna said.
"Do you guys even breath?" Chris asked.
BB just looked at him and pointed at her gas mask. She then muttered something like 'dumb ass' but was a bit garbled by the mask.
"And your plan is?" Rhiana prompted.
"No time, No time!" Jenna rushed out of the room to a strategy room where BB had created maps of the three ships in the Zarek Armada. "OK. Where to put the coco-bombs?"
""
An hour later, X-13 was assembled and loaded into the space pod. Surprisingly it was a very roomy fit, even with all the backpacks and emergency equipment.
Damian raised his hand; "Do we have to wear these retarded looking suits?" he looked down at himself at the same kind of skintight yellow spacesuit that Logan had complained about.
"You know the answer, kid" Rhiana replied. "OK, you guys are going to split into three teams to plant the Coco-Bombs. I will be on a team with Gabby and Mikale; Jenna, Damian and BB are on the next team. Which leaves Chris, Celene and Angel on the last team."
"Here are the schematics for the ships that you will be invading." Jenna handed out small packets to each member of the team. "We'll drop Celene's team off first and my team next. When you are finished, wait at the spot that is marked on your maps. The spots that you drop off the bombs are highlighted. Just rip the bag and empty it out."
"We are ready for take off!" Damian said and hit the appropriate buttons that allowed the ship to lift off.
"I think I'm going to be sick!" Gabby said after a few minutes of flight. She wasn't the only one who was a bit green; Damian definitely couldn't fly a spacecraft.
"I vote that someone else drives." Mikale said as Gabby buried her head in his shoulder.
"Seconded!" BB said as she gently but firmly shoved Damian out of the driver's seat.
Fifteen minutes later the space pod pulled silently up to the hull of one of the ships. Three minutes after that, Celene, Angel and Chris were on the ship and off to the air ducts. Ten minutes after that, X-13 noticed three space ships headed toward the Zarek ships.
"Guess who?" Mikale murmured as the remaining members of the team looked at the monitor.
"Shit! Any ideas on how we can keep them from charging in and killing themselves." Rhiana asked no one in particular.
"Jenna and I could create a Block and set a time limit on i-- What???" Everyone on the ship was giving BB a blank look. She asked Jenna, "You didn't know we could do that?"
"I don't even know what you're talking about." Jenna's face was a mask of disbelief.
"Oh it's really easy. Even the children of Zarek can do it." BB assured Jenna.
"What is a 'Block'?" Rhiana asked.
It was BB's turn to look astonished. "You have to be kidding me! Well I'll give you the quick explanation." She looked at Jenna and began demonstrating. "First you focus on your power and then you envision it as an unbreakable wall around what ever you want Blocked."
"I think I understand." Jenna said as she created a small Block in between her hands.
"That's it." BB said. "Now I'm going to Block the ship on the right, you do the one on the left and we'll both take care of the center ship."
""
"What the hell do you mean, 'we aren't moving.'!?!" Scott's scream could almost be heard in the vacuum of space.
"I mean, all three ships have stopped dead in their tracks. And I don't know what happened." Jean's image was displayed on a video screen next to a screen that currently showed Logan in all of his pissed off glory.
"Figure out what happened as soon as possible. We need to get the fuck going!" Scott turned off the screens and fumed.
""
"Wow! That was actually really easy!" Jenna stated as all three spaceships that held the X-Men stopped and hovered in space.
"I'd be sad if you couldn't do something as easy as that." BB said and sped them off to the next ship.
"Why can't we do that to the Zarek ships?" Mikale asked.
"Because there are at least one thousand people who can do the same and reverse it on each ship." BB said sarcastically.
"Oh. I feel really stupid." Mikale muttered to Gabby.
"OK kiddies! we're here!" Rhiana took the wheel from BB and Jenna, Damian and BB readied to board the Zarek vessel. "We'll come pick you up in an hour. Be ready to leave then or I'll have to come in after you." Rhiana smiled evilly, "And remember to play nice with your new alien friends!"
"Got it." Jenna smiled her own creepy 'I'm gonna kick some ass' smile and picked up two backpacks and turned toward the airlock, "This shouldn't take too long, we'll be ready."
With those last words, Jenna went through the airlock and onto enemy territory with Damian and BB.
""
(I bet you think I'm going to end it here, don't you? Well you, my dear readers are MISTAKEN!!! He He He!! Enjoy!)
""
"OK, so we take this duct which will lead us to this fan…" Celene held the map of the air ducts for the ship called Exenon. The team was three-quarters done with their list of drops. "We have to drop five Coco-Bombs there and then move into the barracks' ducts."
"Does anyone else feel like we are being watched?" Chris asked a bit paranoid.
"That's because you are, intruders." An evilly calm voice whispered in the shadows behind the X-kids.
Celene, Chris and Angel were knocked out before they knew who was behind them.
""
"That's the last of it." Mikale said as he ripped the last bag.
"Good." Rhiana turned around and started toward the hall where they had entered, "Let's get the hell out of here. I've been in this ship an hour loner than I wanted to be."
"Thank God!" Gabby said and readjusted the mask that she had been wearing for what seemed like the last two days. She sighed, It's only been four hours.
Four hours since Burnt Bones had bored a hole through the center of the Mansion. Four hours since Jenna had thought up this plan. And, hopefully, in the next four hours, the world would be safe.
""
"I see Rhiana and the others coming." Damian was watching out a window near the pickup spot for Jenna's team.
"Finally, I was getting nervous." Jenna breathed for the first time in forty-five minutes.
"Rhiana's Interstellar Taxi Service!" Gabby opened the airlock and let the mutants on. "Sorry about the wait, the ship was too big and Mikale got us lost three times before we took the map from him."
"Once again, Not my fau—" Mikale was cut off by the video screens coming to life.
"Humans! You thought that you could sabotage us by poisoning us?!?" the booming voice of General Bloody Wolf screeched across every television on the planet. "Ha! We admire your dishonorable attempt. Unfortunately it failed!!"
The scene changed from the face of the general to a horribly familiar face, "If you do not surrender to us within the next twenty menteks, we will slowly begin rending your planet atom form atom. Beginning with this worthless child."
Angel was chained to a wall, badly beaten but still glairing at the aliens. Next to her was a cage that was occupied by Celene and Chris. Celene was still unconscious but Chris was saying something that wasn't picked up by the video feed.
"You only have ten more menteks before we begin to tear this one to shreds, I'd suggest you hurry." The feed was terminated and every person on the planet was left staring at a black screen.
"Shit!!!" Rhiana looked into the back of the space pod and made sure that everyone was strapped in, "Sit tight! I'm getting us over there yesterday!!"
With that the remaining members of X-13 shot off to the rescue.
""
"—the fuck are the kids doing on the alien ships?!!!?" Scott could once again be heard through out space.
"I don't know but I damn well am going to find out!" Logan instructed the pilot of his ship to gun the engine. "Get this piece of shit moving! NOW, DAMN IT!!!!!"
"Logan, calm down!" Jean looked a lot more than flustered. "We haven't been able to move in the past tw—" the psychic ate her words as she watched Logan's spaceship rocket toward the three alien ships. "What are we waiting for? Follow him!"
"Hey, Jean. Focus your video on the third ship," Scott instructed his former teammate. "Does that look like one of Damian's ship designs?"
Jean looked where he instructed, where she saw a small space pod that definitely looked like one of Damian's doodles. Modified a bit. "Well we now know how Celene, Angel and Chris got on the ship…" She let her sentence fade.
"Shit!" for the third time in two hours, Scott broke the laws of physics.
""
Starr: How did you like that?
Jessi: What the hell kind of ending is that?!?!?!?!?!?!
Starr: A very beautiful cliffhanger.
Jessi: But you yourself said that this is the last chapter!!!!!
Starr: Ah.. but you forget, young grasshopper, I started with a Prologue.
Jessi: Evil glint in eyes and off of Mr. Whip. AND!!!!
Starr: Well I have to end with a Epilogue!!
Jessi: Why do I put up with you?!?!
Starr: You are enthralled by whit and writing style!?! Patented Starr Blank Look.
Jessi: I will let you get away with this, this time. But you better write the next chapter SOON!!!!! Or I will kill you.
Starr: Anyway! Review and I will love you forever.
Hugz and the ever-present chocolate bunnies!
