WAAAAAHHHH!!!! BOO HOO!!! I can't find my muse! My fuzzy blue genius has abandoned me!!! *sob*

Since I can't find him, I've ordered a replacement. He should be here any minute...

*knock knock knock*

ME: "Come in!"

A man wearing a ruby quartz visor opens the door and walks in.

SCOTT: "Hi!"

ME: "Oh dear God, NOOOOO!!!!"

.................................
CHAPTER FIVE: Caillou's Bad Day or Barney Gets Indigestion


The snyapses of the X-men were reeling from the mental blast that they had just endured. The professor and Jean recovered quickly and put up mental shields before the second attack hit.

***I WANT A COOKIE AND I WANT IT NOW!!!!***

Both Jean and the professor winced as the unbelievably powerful attack tested their shields to the limit. They could concentrate only on their own shields; the others were out of luck. Cries of pain could be heard throughout the room as Jean did a quick scan of the mansion to locate the horrid little brat.

He was close by - very close. In fact, he was just outside the door!

The door was kicked open and slammed against the inside wall. In walked Caillou, his jaw clenched and arms wrapped tightly around his teddy bear.

***WHERE'S MY COOKIE?!***

"Calm down, Caillou!" said Jean. She had to say it out loud; her thoughts couldn't penetrate the kid's amazingly thick skull.

Caillou's eyes scanned over the group, and came to rest on Logan.

"That man!" he said, pointing an accusing finger at him. "That man HURT me!"

Jean turned to Wolverine. "What did you do to him, Logan?"

Logan couldn't answer. He clenched his head once more and howled in pain as Caillou focus on his mind.

***YOU HURT ME!!!***

Wolverine couldn't stand the pain anymore. He unsheathed his claws and lunged at the boy. Jean telekinetically stopped him from slicing Caillou, but the man did manage to wrench the teddy bear out of the kid's arms.

"TEDDY!!!" Caillou shrieked.

***TEDDY!!!***

Logan put his claws to the bear's throat. "GET OUTTA MY HEAD, KID, OR THE BEAR GETS IT!!!" he roared.

A few moments of tense silence as everyone stared intently at the two, wondering how the stand-off was going to end.

Xavier spoke up. "Logan, give him back his teddy bear," he ordered, his voice quiet but stern.

Logan growled.

"Logan, I told you to return the bear!" the professor repeated, his voice rising.

The Canuck reluctantly resheathed his claws. Then slowly, very slowly, he lowered his fuzzy hostage.

Caillou wrenched the toy out of the man's hand. "Oh, teddy, teddy!" he cried, hugging the bear tightly to him.

"Now, isn't that better, Caillou?" Xavier asked, his voice returning to normal.

Caillou looked at him. "That man still hurt me!" he cried indignantly.

"And I can assure you he will be punished for that, Caillou," the professor replied.

"I wanna go home!"

"But, my dear boy, you ARE home! You're with your daddy, now!"

Caillou looked confused. "No, my daddy is at home. With mommy. They left me here!" Tears welled up in his beady little eyes.

"Yes, yes they did! But that's because you are MY son! I'M your daddy, Caillou!"

Caillou's eyes widened with amazement. "You are?" he asked incrediously.

The professor nodded. "Yes, I am! You can call ME daddy now, okay?"

"Okay...daddy," Caillou replied, nodding his head.

The happy(?) reunion didn't last long, however. Barney burst in through the door, a crazed look in his dilated eyes. He spied Caillou, and before anybody could react (or maybe they just didn't want to stop him), he lunged at Caillou and gobbled him down.

The professor was horrified. Logan was thrilled. Everyone else was just grossed out.

Then Barney started gurgling, and hacking, then made no more sounds as he waved his skimpy little arms around as his face turned....purple? what colour does a purple dinosaur's face turn when he's choking? Anyways, Barney's face turned that colour.

Reacting instinctively, Hank rushed over behind Barney, wrapped his arms around his midsection and started to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre on him. With one thunderous HACK!, Caillou's head flew out of Barney's throat, sailed across the room and landed with a wet plop in Professor X's lap.

Logan was furious. "Christ, Beast! Why'd you have to go and do that? We coulda been rid of BOTH of them in one shot!"

Hank sheepishly shrugged his shoulders as Barney slid onto the floor, slowly regaining his breath.

"I couldn't help it! Hippocratic oath and all..." Hank's sentence was cut off by the professor's sudden wailing.

"Oh, my son! MY SON!" he sobbed, clutching Caillou's head. "And so young! Why, God, WHY?!!!"

Jean was getting fed up by all this. She went over to the moaning professor and whispered in his ear, "Professor, I think there's still some cookies that Caillou missed in the kitchen!"

All wailing and moaning stopped instantly as a boyish smile suddenly spread across Xavier's face.

"Cookies?!" he cried. He tossed Caillou's head over his shoulder (which landed perfectly in the garbage bin), then took off at warp speed toward the doorway.

THUD!!

"Aw, dammit! Now I've got a purple stain on my hoverchair!"

Hank regarded the purple mess with disgust. "Well Logan, it looks like you got your wish after all."

"Woo hoo!!" Logan exclaimed.

Xavier backed up over Barney's corpse, then hit the gas and headed out the door, singing about cookies.

"Like father, like son," Jean muttered as she shook her head. She turned to face the X-men. "Now who is going to clean up this mess?"

There was a mass scrambling toward the doorway, accompanied by shoving, kicking, pushing, pulling and copious "Get outta my way!" exclamations.

Jean shook her head again and hauled them all back into the office with her telekinesis.

"But Je-ean!" they whined.

"No buts! I'm not cleaning this up all by myself! Now get to work!"

* * *

Back at the other end of the mansion, Bob the Builder was wiping his sweaty brow.

"Boy, that professor is sure working us to the bone!" he said.

"Yeah, no kidding!" agreed Muck.

"We've been working non-stop since we got here!" Lofty added.

"Aren't we supposed to get breaks?" Scoop asked. "Can't we just go on strike?"

"Sorry guys," Bob replied sadly. "But since we aren't unionized, we can't go on strike!"

Just then, Dizzy ran(?) into the hallway and spun around Bob in panicked circles crying, "Bob! It's Pilchard! Oh Pilchard, Pilchard!"

Bob became very worried. "Calm down, Dizzy! What's wrong with Pilchard?"

It was then he noticed that Dizzy was also crying. "I...It's horrible, Bob!"

Now Bob was starting to panic. "What happened, Dizzy! Tell me!"

Dizzy broke out into sobs. "Sh...she's DEAD, Bob! Th...th...they k..k..killed her!!! WAAAAAHHH!!!"

Bob's face turned white as a sheet. "Pilchard...dead?" he couldn't believe it.

He didn't have very long to think about it, as just then the professor's hoverchair appeared at the end of the hall.

"COOKIES! COOKIES! I WANT COOKIES!" he cried, a crazed look in his eyes as he came at the little group of machines at full speed.

"EVERYONE GET OUTTA THE WAY!!!" Bob screamed as he dove under a drinking fountain.

The whizzing sound of the hoverchair was nearly deafening as the man zoomed past, accompanied by a sickening crunch.

"LOFTY!!!" cried Bob, but it was too late. There was nothing left of the little blue hypochondriac machine but a few mangled metal pieces, some screws and two pairs of burst tires.

Bob dropped to his knees, sobbing. "Not Pilchard! Not Lofty!" he moaned through his tears. The other machines gathered around him, crying machine oil tears.

After a while, Dizzy tentatively asked, "What are we going to do, Bob?"

Bob stopped sobbing. He slowly lowered his hands from his face, revealing such a grotesque, twisted, angry face that the other machines backed away in horror.

"I'll tell you what we're going to do," he said as he rose slowly to his feet, his voice low, grating and dangerous.

"We're going to get those X-bastards for this!" he suddenly exclaimed, throwing his hard-hat to the ground. Waving his fists in the air, he cried, "Do you hear me?! IT'S PAYBACK TIME!!!"

* * *

WARNING: The following contains spoilers for X-Men Mangaverse!!!

* * *

SCOTT: That's NOT what I told you to write!

ME: I know. That's why I wrote it!

SCOTT: Why are you always so mean to me?

ME: I dunno...kiss-butt attitude, stick up yer ass....gee, what's NOT to like?

SCOTT: *glowers*

ME: AND I'm particularly ticked off at you for blasting Beast to bits in the Marvel Mangaverse X-Men comic!

SCOTT: But they MADE me do it!

ME: Oh, boo hoo! You could have gone easy on him, just knocked him senseless! You didn't have to decorate the walls with his guts! Not that those Marvel bastards haven't done their fair share to throw Hank through the ringer. They drew him as an ugly Japanese demon, for heaven's sake! As if the poor guy's life isn't bad enough!

SCOTT: Oh really? What about what you did to him in your Tail of Two Beasts story?

ME: Shut up!!! That was Tal's idea!

SCOTT: You still WROTE it, didn't you? That makes you an accomplice!

ME: Go to hell.

SCOTT: No, YOU go to hell.

ME: Now you're just being childish!

SCOTT: I know YOU are, but what am I?

ME: Dipwad!!

SCOTT: I know you are, but what am I?

ME: Shut up, already!

SCOTT: Shut up, already!

ME: CUT IT OUT!!!

SCOTT: Cut it out!

ME: ARRRGGHHH!!!

SCOTT: Arrrgghhh!

ME: I'M GONNA KILL YOU!!!

SCOTT: I'd like to see you try....

* * *

Oh, dear God in heaven I promise if you return my blue muse to me, I'll treat him better! I swear!!! Just bring him back to me!! PLEASE!!!

P.S. Reviews are always welcomed and appreciated, and thanks once again goes out to those who have been reviewing so far!