It was like a scene right
out of a teenybopper movie. Two pretty girls, dressed in the latest styles,
cruising around a modern-looking avenue in a car that normal teenagers
couldn't even dream of affording, radio cranked up to blast 'NSYNC's Bye
Bye Bye as loud as possible. Jubilation Lee let out a cheer, as she
and Kitty Pryde continued to zip down the avenue, terribly over the speed
limit, their hair blowing madly in the wind.
"Woo hoo! This is so much
fun!" the pretty Chinese girl remarked, shouting to be heard above both
the wind and 'NSYNC. Kitty, looking rather sharp in a pair of pink tinted
shades, nodded enthusiastically, before questioning, "I don't know why
we didn't think of this earlier. I mean, hijacking Scott's convertible
has got to be the best idea we've come up with in ages!"
"No kidding." Jubilation
nodded in agreement, before pumping her fist in the air. "Yeah!"
Just then, the dismaying
sound of police sirens broke into Bye Bye Bye's self-titled chorus.
At first, the two girls ignored it, assuming it must be for someone else,
but one uneasy glance around pointed out that theirs was one of the very
few cars on the avenue, and out of those very few cars, they were the only
ones going over the speed limit. By over twenty miles per hour, one might
add.
"Uh oh," Kitty muttered,
as she automatically started slowing down. Switching off the radio and
turning to Jubilation, the pretty freshman hissed, "Quick, switch seats
with me!"
Jubilation looked dumbfounded.
"What--No! I'm not switching
seats and taking the blame!" she retorted, looking rather offended. Kitty
wore a panicked look on her face.
"But you don't understand,"
she fretted, "I don't have my driver's permit with me!"
Jubilation was aghast.
"Well, don't look at me,"
she snapped, adding, "I flat out don't even have a driver's permit,
period!"
Kitty looked like she wanted to break down and cry.
"Oh, no," the fifteen-year-old
X-girl moaned, as she obediently slowed down enough to pull over. "I'm
gonna be grounded until I'm sixty-five!"
Jubilation, meanwhile, was looking over her shoulder--specifically,
at the police cruiser that had also slowed down and coasted to a stop,
directly behind their hijacked convertible. As the door slowly opened,
the pretty Asian recruit panicked, and, turning to Kitty, clutched desperately
at the only solution she deemed possible.
"Quick," she hissed, "show
him your boobs!"
Kitty's jaw dropped, as, insulted, she cried out, "What--What the...I
am not going to show him my boobs just to get out of a ticket!"
Meanwhile, a tall police officer started getting out of the cruiser,
wearing one of the sternest expressions either girl had ever seen.
"Look, you totally suck
at flirting, so that's out of the window, and unless you can think of a
better solution, flash him already!" Jubilation snapped. Kitty huffed,
offended.
"Well--What the--I'll have
you know...Why don't you flash him?!" she finally stammered out.
Jubilation scowled, before retorting, "Because I came up with the
idea, duh!"
"Well, I have my
dignity to think about here!" Kitty shot back. Turning pink, she added
in a tinier voice, "Besides...my boobs aren't that big."
"Well...neither are mine,"
Jubilation finally admitted. Sighing, she wondered, "Argh! Where are Jean
and Rogue when you need them?"
Meanwhile, back on the road, the officer was slowly approaching their
car. Turning frantically to Kitty, Jubilation commanded, "Here, show him
your boobs already!"
"No, I'm not!" Kitty shot
back. "I already told you that they're not that big, anyway!"
In response, Jubilation snapped open the glove compartment, and started
sifting through all the junk stored inside.
"Here, if you will put this
into your bra..." she started to suggest. Kitty annoyedly batted her friend's
hand away from the glove compartment.
"Will you knock it off?!"
she hissed. "I am not going to stuff some balled-up comic of Lance
with devil horns about to get crushed by Scott riding a robotic elephant
down my shirt!"
Jubilation, meanwhile, stopped tossing junk away from the glove compartment,
long enough to glance over her shoulder and panic, "He's almost here!"
Kitty drew in her breath sharply, before groaning.
"Oh, what the hell..." she
muttered under her breath. Turning to Jubilation, the chestnut-haired freshman
ordered, "Give me that flashlight!"
By then, the police officer
had finally arrived at the (hijacked) red convertible.
"Do you know at what speed
you were going, ma'am...?" he started to say, but broke off suddenly when
the driver of the car stopped fidgeting around with her shirt, and turned
around to face him.
"Yes?" Kitty put on what
she hoped was a sultry smile, having no idea that she instead looked like
a sixth grader who'd just had braces put in, as she indiscreetly wrapped
her arms underneath her padded bust and practically shoved them right up
to the poor officer's face.
"Did I do something wrong...officer?"
she added, making an attempt at a seductive little pout. The officer, meanwhile,
couldn't help but stare in horrified fascination at the young girl's breasts,
taking notice of how one protruded sharply out from underneath the thin
material of her shirt, while the other stood out in crinkly little lumps.
"Um...Ahem!" Red-faced,
the officer ducked his head, clearing his throat numerous times until he'd
completely run out of saliva. Forgetting what he had initially planned
to say, the officer instead mumbled out in a quick rush of words, "Normally,
I'd give you a ticket for being thirty miles per hour over the speed limit...but
since it's so obvious that you desperately need all the money you can get
for, um, reparative surgery, I'll just let you off with a warning." And
the poor man scrambled the hell away as fast as he possibly could.
As soon as the cruiser had
screeched the hell out of the place, Kitty quickly reached down her shirt
and pulled out a flashlight and a crumpled-up road map.
"Ugh, next time, you'd
better be the one who's putting things into her bra!" she complained
to Jubilation, who meekly nodded. As the car pulled away from the curb
and Jubilation switched the radio back on, in time to catch the ending
of some new Britney Spears song, Kitty moaned, "Oh, my God, that was so
incredibly humiliating!"
Just then, the song ended, the DJ announced, "And now, we have the
newest dedication from Pietro to Evan!", and Kitty immediately brightened
up, chirping, "Huh, I don't even need to know which song it is,
I'm feeling a lot better already!"
Meanwhile, somewhere in the distance, one could swear they heard a
shrill, furious screech of, "PIETROOOOO!!!"
"Ouch! Will you quit trying
to shove that thing into my ear!" Rogue grumbled, turning away sharply
from a determined-looking Scott. The fearless leader of the X-Men responded
by grumbling, "Look, if it worked in Ally McBeal, there is no freakin'
way it can't work in real life!"
"Oh, right, like it really
is possible for a size-zero lawyer to date Jon Bon Jovi as a plumber and
raise a ten-year-old daughter who mysteriously appears on her porch out
of the blue, and..." Rogue started to roll her eyes, when suddenly, a particular
thought crossed her mind. "Hey! Since when the hell did the macho leader
of the mighty X-Men watch Ally frickin' McBeal?"
Scott blushed, and ducked his head, pretending to be fascinated by
the shadowy asphalt in front of his shoes. Finally, after a good five minutes
of fidgeting and stalling, the tall, dark-haired senior finally admitted,
"I thought it would help me get closer to Jean...Apparently, it didn't,
because all it did was give Jean an opportunity to silently compare my
looks to those of an eighties heartthrob's!"
Rogue rolled her eyes.
"Well, duh!" she admonished
him. "Hey...is that why you're trying to grow your hair out? So you can
style it like Jon Bon Jovi's? Because if it is, then let me tell you, Jean's
celebrity crush isn't Jon Bon Jovi, it's Mark McGrath...no, wait, that's
Kitty! Oh, yeah! Jean likes Johnny Rzeznik! No, wait, that's Rahne! Or
was that Amara? Okay, I know Tabitha's in love with a young Axl Rose circa
Welcome To The Jungle...or was that David Lee Roth circa Jump?
No, it's definitely Axl. And Jubilee likes Rob Thomas--or was that Gavin
Rossdale? Oh, well, who cares, but anyway Jean's celebrity crush is..."
"As I was saying!" Scott
cut her off in a clipped tone. "You go into the Pizza Hut, and strike up
a conversation with Lance, and then discreetly steer the topic toward
his relationship with Jean...or, specifically, whether it's true the two
of them are--"
"Scott Stapp!" Rogue suddenly
burst out, a triumphant expression on her face as she snapped her fingers.
Scott Summers, meanwhile, was so startled by her sudden trill, that had
he not been securely fastened to his convertible, he would have surely
fallen out.
"What do you mean, Scott
Stapp? Jean's not dating Scott Stapp, is she?" he demanded, rubbing his
ear since the Southern-accented name had been shouted nearly directly into
the side of his head.
"No, no, of course not!
Jean's celebrity crush isn't Jon Bon Jovi or Rob Thomas, it's the cutie
from Creed, Scott Stapp," Rogue said.
"Fine, fine, so she likes
Stapp...What do you mean, the cutie from Creed?" Scott (Summers) arched
an eyebrow, and Rogue ducked her head and blushed.
"Kitty came up with that,
not me, so don't go getting any ideas," she muttered sourly. Scott sighed.
"Fine," he grumbled. "So
Jean's celebrity crush is Scott Stapp and not Jon Bon Jovi, and I've just
wasted about five hundred dollars' worth of hair gel and mousse."
"Hey, I'll be more than
happy to take those off your hands if you don't want them," Rogue offered.
"Anyway," Scott interrupted
sharply, trying to steer the topic back into the mission at hand, "you'll
be wearing this...this, um, transmitter thingie when you're talking to
Lance, so that I can hear what he's saying, and in case you're at a loss
at what to say, I can help you."
Rogue rolled her eyes in a Well, he's crazy fashion toward Scott,
but grudgingly accepted the device and slipped the tiny transmitter into
her ear.
"Fine, fine," she grumbled,
as she reluctantly got out of the car and started heading toward the brightly-lit
Pizza Hut.
"And don't forget to talk
about Jean!" Scott called out after Rogue as she trekked across the nearly
deserted parking lot.
"Right, whatever," Rogue
muttered back.
"And try to hide that transmitter
from view!" Scott added.
"Sure," Rogue called back
in a surly tone.
"And don't just talk about
his workout routine!" Scott ordered, mentioning the most important detail.
"Party pooper," Rogue muttered
under her breath.
"What's that?" Scott wanted
to know.
"I mean, yeah, I won't just
talk about his workout routine!" Rogue snapped.
"Good." Scott leaned back,
satisfied that everything was going to go according to plan.
A good two hours had passed, and Rogue was still inside the restaurant. Scott, meanwhile, had gotten out of his car, and was now working diligently on pacing a hole into the cement parking lot. What the hell could be taking her so long, anyway? He had no way of knowing what exactly Lance and Rogue were talking about inside the Pizza Hut, since, at first chance she got, Rogue had taken the transmitter device out of her ear and plunked it into the nearest soda glass, so all Scott had managed to glean from their conversation was a brief greeting (Lance didn't mention any clunkers this time, he noted), before there was the sound of electrical wires frizzing out, and all he heard afterwards was a hollow ringing that lasted for a good fifteen minutes. Scott continued to pace back and forth impatiently. Surely Rogue knew how important this was to him, he fretted. After all, he'd managed to find out that Lance had cranked up Bon Jovi's You Give Love A Bad Name when he'd passed by the Brotherhood leader's Jeep while on the way home from school. That must be a sure signal that Lance was breaking up with Jean, and Rogue knew how crucial it was for her to confirm this information!
Either way, he could wait
no longer. Scott stopped working on digging a hole into the asphalt, and
decided that, while it might blow his cover, he had no other choice but
to go into the Pizza Hut and find out just exactly what Lance and Rogue
were talking about that was important enough to stretch past the two hour
mark. As he got out of his convertible and started heading across the parking
lot and toward the restaurant, Scott heard a distinct hissing noise. The
leader of the X-Men paused abruptly, and listened. The hissing echoed again,
but this time, louder and most certainly closer. His jaw tightened grimly,
as he glanced around at his surroundings.
"Is anybody there?" Scott
called out bravely.
Inside the Pizza Hut, meanwhile,
Lance and Rogue were engaged in a rather intellectual conversation about
who could kick who's ass, Axl or Slash, when Rogue looked at her watch--or
rather, she reached over, took Lance's arm, and glanced at his watch--and
freaked out.
"Oh, no!" she grumbled.
"I've been here two hours! He's gonna kill me!"
"Who's gonna kill you?"
Lance asked pleasantly, and at that moment Rogue realized how glad she
was that he wasn't the mind-reading half of the Lance-Jean couple, before
mumbling out a lame excuse of, "Um, Wolverine. I'm supposed to go on a,
um, late-night training session with him."
"Oh." Lance, thankfully,
seemed convinced--or at the very least, he'd deemed it unnecessary to further
probe into the matter. "Well, then, I guess I shouldn't be keeping you
any longer. Need a ride?"
"No, thanks. I've already
got a ride," Rogue said, and quickly exited their table, mumbling under
her breath, "If he doesn't kill me first, at least."
Exiting the Pizza Hut, Rogue
was promptly greeted by a gust of refreshingly cool night wind, and she
shivered slightly and tightened her coat around her. Glancing around and
squinting slightly at the dimly-lit parking lot, she searched out the telltale
red flash that signaled Scott's convertible...before suddenly hearing what
sounded like a high-pitched girly squeal. Rogue frowned, and turned around
toward the source of the noise...and stared. And stared. And stared. And
stared. And wondered whether her mind was playing tricks on her, or whether
that was really Scott being chased around by a rabid...squirrel.
"Scott? Is that you?" Rogue
called out uneasily, not sure whether she should really believe what her
eyes were telling her--that the brave, manly, absolutely fearless leader
of the mighty X-Men was running like a 1950's housewife who had just seen
a mouse from a rabid chipmunk. Or muskrat. Or squirrel. Or...whatever!
"Scott? Is that you?" Rogue
repeated again, in case Scott, too occupied in his escape from a rabid
gopher, hadn't heard her the first time.
"The squirrels are evil!"
came the prompt, wailed out response, and Rogue rolled her eyes. Bending
down and picking up the nearest pebble she could find, the gothic beauty
waited for an opportunity, before chucking the stone at the rat thing that
was chasing after Scott at the first chance she got.
"Shoo! Go away," the green-clad
X-girl hissed, and the rabid rodent obediently scampered off, leaving a
panting Scott struggling to regain his breath...not to mention his dignity.
"I, um, I was...I was...um,
I was just, um, rehearsing for a, um...Fifty bucks says we never talk of
this again," Scott finally stammered out. Rogue smirked, before holding
out her gloved hand.
"One hundred bucks, and
you've got a deal," she bargained, as Scott glowered at her and muttered
all sorts of unflattering things, before giving in and digging into his
wallet, producing five twenties which his Southern friend gladly accepted.
"You're evil too, you know
that?" he muttered, as he got into the convertible.
"Why, thank you kindly,
good sir," Rogue drawled in that maddening tone of hers. Scott scowled,
and grumbled some more unflattering things, as he pulled out of his parking
space.
"So," the leader of the X-Men
began, once they were safely away from the Pizza Hut and its army of rabid
squirrels, "what did you find out about the whole You Give Love A Bad
Name thing?"
"Basically...that Lance
secretly loves eighties hair bands, like Tabitha said, and simply owns
a copy of Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet album," Rogue replied, to
which Scott groaned and muttered, "You mean I got chased around by a rabid
squirrel for nothing?"
"Well...not quite," Rogue
spoke up hesitantly, as they approached a red light. Scott braked sharply,
and turned to her with an eager look on his face.
"What do you mean?" he wanted
to know.
"Well...it turns out that
Lance is planning to take Jean out on a romantic cruise Friday night, but
I'm not exactly sure how that's going to help you break them up," Rogue
replied uncertainly. Scott looked crushed for a moment...and then, that
familiar, manic grin began to seep through.
"Well, then," he said, to
a now positively wary Rogue, "we're just going to have to play chaperones,
now won't we?"