1.



Bobby tore up the package. "Cool," he muttered to himself, eyes shining like summer sky.

"What have you got there?" Jubilee asked from behind his shoulders.

Bobby immediately turned around, his face red and flushing. "Ah… uh… nothing." He hid it at his back, which did a bad job hiding whatever he had there.

Jubilee screwed her eyes in confusion, then her eyebrows rose in mock comprehension. "I see. One of your Playboy back issues bundle orders." She stared at him and turned quickly on her feet away from him. "I'm telling the Professor."

Bobby thought quickly, then it came to him. Seconds later Jubilee's screams rang throughout the mansion. "HELP!! Bobby's frozen my FEET!"


Actually it was nothing of importance, but what would the rest of the X-Men say when one of its members still had this uncanny love of Dungeons and Dragons? Bobby never missed any of its early editions, but of late he found himself getting more and more left behind with all the crazy mutants trying to take over the world. They would do as much damage as Pinky and the Brain would for all he cared.

What mattered now was that the latest edition was in his hands, and, alone in his room, he was going through the rules, the set and all with adept attention.

BLAM!

Bobby sat on his bed as Hank, Jubilee, Logan, Scott, Ororo, Jean and Ray burst into his bedroom. He stared at them indignantly. "What in the hell are you doing?"

"Jubes here said you had back issues of Playboy magazine," Logan said sternly. His eyes, though, betrayed his real feelings: they glowed hungrily at the word 'Playboy'. "Where is it?"

"Serious offence, young man," Scott said, the same hunger shone in his eyes. "What issue did you order?"

Jean stared at him in disbelief. "I don't suppose you want to know who was on the covers, do you now?"

Ray meanwhile stood on his toes to see what Bobby had behind him. "Cool, man! I never thought you would buy those mags!"

Ororo threw him a disgusted stare that said 'men, pigs all of them'.

Bobby stared at Jubilee. Hard. "I guess this is your doing, isn't it?" The latter stuck out her tongue. "Well, boys and girls, have a look at my back issue mags if you must," he said as he moved aside. Logan and Scott were the first to jump onto the bed while the rest looked on. Afterwards they sat up on the bed with anger colouring their faces.

"That's no mag, that's a damned game!" Logan disappointedly tossed the box cover.

The rest exhaled in relief, but the men were clearly disappointed. "No thanks to you, Jubes," Scott said, staring angrily at her who shuffled her feet on the floor and staring anywhere but at them.

"Satisfied? All right then, now leave me alone."

Hank was the only one who was left. "Hey, Bobby," he began.

"What?"

He looked outside for a moment; they had all gone down. Then he looked at Bobby and at the game, its new glossy cover a siren's call. "Can we play that game now?'


"… you are walking in the woods, the lane pleasant, the view wonderful. Suddenly three orcs sprang out of the bushes! They stare at you as if you were their dinner!"

Hank's eyes shone as he stared at a long list before him. "All right, here we go. I choose to cast Burning Hands!"

"On which one?" Bobby asked, taking his pencil.

"Burning Hands affects all, right?"

"Not if you could somehow manage to squeeze the orcs together you can."

"But you said I was in a lane, of course the three orcs are squeezed together!"

"Let's see what the dice tell."

Bobby rolled the dice, and fortunately for Hank the orcs had low hit points. "YEAH! I cast Burning Hands on you! Take that you good-for-nothing orcs!"

Hank's delighted scream floated to the hall below where Warren was reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Then another scream. Then another laugh. Then another scream. Then -

"Goddammit! Can't I have a moment's peace here!?" Warren shouted at the top of his lungs. The sounds perished instantly. "Thank you!" he muttered as he sat down and picked up where he had just left.

He could hear chuckles, but that was not as irritating as the continuous girlish giggles and screams he had just experienced. Ayn Rand needs deep concentration, and so he wished for right now. If he could have it, he would finish the book by today -

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

That's it, Warren thought. That's the end of those two insufferable fools! That's the last time they'd every scream. Or speak for that matter. Because he, Warren Worthington III is going to take the two by the throats, squeeze'em until they could only wheeze then snap each neck in a dainty fashion so that nobody would hear them and them cram their sorry bodies into a chimney just like what happened in Murders in the Rue Morgue or even better, cement up their bodies underground! Or why not just grind them up? They'd both go to hell -

These thoughts were in Warren's head, flying around his head like bluebottle flies, ugly and repelling yet very, very compelling at the same time, as he flew furiously upwards and then towards the door of Bobby's bedroom. As he hovered before it he kicked it wide open and entered with air of a wrathful angel, his face dark with anger.

But then the anger faded.

Because there was nobody inside the room.


"Maybe they are playing tricks," Jubilee said, ever the sceptical. "You cannot believe what the two did the other day to Ms Frost. They put a mini camera in her room and then broadcasted it all over the mansion."

Emma showed no emotion even as the rest of them mumbled behind her how brazen she had been even though the broadcast had been very revealing. In more ways than one.

"They can't scream like hell and then just vanished," Scott said.

"You got the hell part right," Warren said. He wouldn't be able to finish the book by this evening; he knew it by the way things turning out so far. "But seriously, I did hope that they would go to hell."

"You got your wish, then," Logan said nonchalantly. "Maybe they went out to buy something or whatever."

"Hey, where's Kurt?" Ororo asked.

"You think he did this?" Ray asked her back.

"Could be," Ororo replied. "He could have done that for fun, too, or just for the heck of it."

"Impossible," Jean said. "He's been sleeping. I saw to that. Gave him some sleeping pills just now. He felt quite tired after last night's vigil."

"Oh, right," mumbled Jubilee. "His new year resolution. Pray each night."

"So, what do we do now?" Remy asked.

Scott looked around as he sensed all eyes were on him. "We'll wait," he said after a long hesitant pause. "We'll wait."

Will you wait? Then please review!