*Which brings me to another interesting point. I'll be doing the Lance/Pietro section first, the title's...actually, I don't wanna spoil it by giving the title away, but anyways, I still need a helluva lot more characters for the heavy metal section, so can people please submit some characters to be the front man, base player, drummer, producers, managers, etc--and make them as outrageous and crazy as possible, since this is a humor fic and everything? I swear I'll be good to them; hey, if you need any reference for how this section's gonna turn out, just check out my Creed ficcie, Oh, The Horrors Of Teenypop (and drop a lavishly praising review while you're at it! ^_^). Still, shameless plug aside, that should give you an idea to the degree of craziness that the fic is gonna be, so submit more charas for Lance and Pietro, and make them as crazy and outrageous and wacky as you can (hey, if watch FX, think along the lines of Son of the Beach!). Okay, enough of my rambling, on with the prologue!
Prologue: They Worked Hard For The Money
The
sturdy, army-green Jeep pulled over in front of a modern supermarket, and
two teenage boys hesitantly stepped out. Lance Alvers and Pietro Maximoff
exchanged uncertain glances as they stared at the glass sliding doors leading
to the grocery store, before Pietro consulted the shopping list that Mystique
had thrust into his hands.
"Um...how
are we supposed to carry all these things?" Pietro muttered uncertainly,
staring boggle-eyed at the thirty-plus items listed on the single sheet
of paper and never once taking notice of the nice, neat rows of shopping
carts lined up to his left. Lance snorted, and flexed one of his arms.
"Well,
I don't know about a scrawny eighty-nine pounder like you, but someone
as lean and toned as me, who spends at least two hours at the gym each
day, should have no problem carrying as many groceries as Mystique and
the Blob need," he huffed proudly, sticking his nose into the air. The
supposed leader of the Brotherhood strutted arrogantly through the glass
sliding doors...and promptly smacked right into a gigantic, fearsome beast
with fiercely glowing eyes, eyes that had come straight from the depths
of Hell! Lance took one good look at it, and decided within a nanosecond
what the most manly way to react to such a dilemma should rightfully be.
"AAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEE!"
Pietro snorted.
"Dude,
you so totally scream like a girl," he remarked, and the curious fact as
to why Lance would yodel so at the sight of Happy the Hot Dog never even
crossed his mind. Meanwhile, the kid dressed up as Happy blinked, before
thrusting out a flyer and mumbling in a monotone that would have made Wanda
seem sweet and cheerful, "Come to Happy's Hot Dog Palace, where all of
our meals are served with love, and an extra dose of Happiness."
Lance
and Pietro split up, after Lance had recovered from the trauma of being
attacked by a giant wiener (Ew! Not that kind of wiener, you perverts!)
and had insisted that he'd let out a manly warrior's cry, not a
sissy girlie scream. Pietro agreed to go to the bakery to fetch the thirty-two
sugar-honey-and-marmalade cakes that Freddy had ordered, while Lance wandered
off to the butchers to purchase some manly frozen meat. Seven hours had
passed (Lance had spent five of those wandering aimlessly around, and the
other two waiting in line for the butcher to prepare his order), and as
Lance was busy yelling at the stupid butcher to hurry the hell up, a rather
disturbing ringing sound started emanating from a strategic place in his
pants. The ringing continued, and as people in line started to gawk at
Lance, he snorted impatiently, reached into his jeans, and pulled out a...cell
phone!
"What?!"
he barked into it, sounding rather grumpy and impatient.
"Dude,
I'm in India!" Pietro's frantic wailing came across sharply through the
other line. Lance chose that moment to show off his extremely impressive
vocabulary, as he screeched out in a keening, abrasive shrill that would
have made Axl Rose proud, "WHAT?!"
"I'm
in India!" Pietro wailed. Lance, upon hearing those words and having his
fear confirmed, reacted by repeating his greeting...only with a little
something extra added.
"*BLEEP*-ING
WHAT?!"
Ahem, the authoress has decided to very graciously
edit out that part, seeing as how she wants to keep the story's PG-to-PG-13
rating.
"Lance,
will you stop doing that?" Pietro whined. "You sound like Robert Plant
on crack."
"What
the hell are you doing in India?!" Lance, having snapped out of
his What-ing phase, screeched out, loud enough to wake up the dead.
"Well,
I saw this sign next to the bakery that said Deli, so I naturally assumed
New Delhi, and so I hopped on the fastest flight to India--paying with
(and maxing out) Mystique's credit card, naturally," Pietro bawled in a
panicked voice. Lance grunted.
"Fine,
fine, I'll come pick you up," he grumbled, as he huffily stomped out of
line and began making plans to catch the next flight to India.
Seven Hours Later...
"...Bienvenidos
a México..."
"Oh,
*bleep* *bleep* *bleep*! How stupid could those Spaniards have been to
mistake Indians for Indians?!"
Seven More Hours Later...
"Wah!
It's so good to finally see a familiar face!" Pietro shrieked, as he instantly
latched himself onto Lance's legs. Lance snorted.
"GrumblegrumblegrumbleGetoffmyleggrumblegrumblegrumble,"
he muttered grumpily. As the two started heading toward the airport, Pietro
spoke up.
"Hey,
how'd you pay for all those airplane tickets? I know we're all beyond
broke, and I took all of Mystique's credit cards with me to New
Delhi," he wanted to know.
"I
stole all the credit cards from the Mighty Chrome Dome in the Sky, okay?"
Lance mumbled.
Two Weeks Later...
The
Mighty Chrome Dome in the Sky--um, that is, Professor Charles Xavier, pulled
open a mammoth of an envelope, scanning across all the figures strewn over
the bills. He needed take one good look, before his eyes rolled way back
into his head, and he fainted dead away. Scott and Jean, meanwhile, observed
their mentor and guardian slip into a shock-induced coma.
"What's
gotten into him?" a concerned Jean wondered. Scott thought for a while,
and then snapped his fingers, remembering.
"Well,
it can get to be rather expensive having to feed and house twenty
students, plus pay for the Brotherhood's impromptu trip to Asia," he reasoned.
"I
need to make a business trip to an undisclosed location and clear up all
those money problems and lawsuits," Mystique spoke earnestly into a cell
phone.
"This
doesn't have anything to do with your screwed up recruits, by any chance,
does it?" the person on the other end of the line asked. In response, Mystique
sighed.
"Unfortunately,
it does," she muttered, growling. "They've been racking up such a high
credit card bill, and I've been getting sued for their raucous behavior
so often, that it's making a number of the creditors and supporters of
our mission quite nervous. I'll have to go over and clear things up with
them. It could take anywhere between six weeks to six months."
The other person nodded sympathetically.
"Good
luck," he said. "Is there anything I can do for you?"
"Actually,
yeah," Mystique mumbled. "Would you mind hiding all my credit cards and
checkbooks? I don't want to have to worry about paying more bills while
trying to convince my sponsors that the Brotherhood is indeed highly efficient
and very discreet."
"Don't
worry," her confidant assured her. "I'll watch over them."
"Thank
you," Mystique mumbled gratefully.
Three Days Later...
Jean glanced up from her
magazine, stunned by the words that had just come out of a nervous-looking
Scott's mouth.
"What do you mean we have
to get jobs?" the statuesque redhead wanted to know, a note of alarm creeping
into her usually calm voice. Scott scratched his head, apparently every
bit as confused as she was.
"I mean the Professor and
Storm have left to settle a lawsuit against him brought forth by Air India,"
he mumbled. "Apparently, Lance and Pietro bought First Class tickets, but
because they looked like the dirty rotten scoundrels that they are, they
were bumped back to Coach."
"And Air India's now suing
the Professor why...?" Jean let her voice trail off questioningly. Scott
looked uncomfortable as he prepared to utter the next part of his explanation.
"Um, before I say anything,
will you promise not to get all squeamish on me?" he muttered nervously.
Jean shrugged.
"Sure," she agreed pleasantly.
Scott cleared his throat, fidgeting around, but finally coughed up the
answer.
"Well, it turned out that
the Toxic Twins had snuck aboard enough alcohol to knock out the U.S. Navy,
got ridiculously drunk, and turned into Grade A assholes," he muttered.
"And while Lance harassed the stewardesses and started throwing plastic
cups and plates around, Pietro, who then apparently discovered that he
can't handle any liquor, found out he had to relieve himself--really badly."
"Oh, no," Jean groaned,
clapping her hand against her forehead and already knowing what was about
to happen.
"Yes," Scott growled, pulling
at his collar. "The bathrooms in Coach had long lines, and he tried to
convince the stewardess to let him into the First Class bathroom--but she
refused, and Pietro, who couldn't hold it in any longer, decided to relieve
himself in the next best place."
Jean gasped.
"You mean..." she started
to guess, and Scott nodded dismally.
"Yes," he moaned. "Pietro
proceeded to take a piss in the kitchen sink!"
"Oh, my God..." Jean lamented.
"And since they'd charged
the tickets to Professor Xavier's credit cards, guess who gets the blame?"
Scott muttered bitterly.
"So, about the lawsuit..."
Jean started to say.
"The Professor and Storm
have to travel all the way to Air India's headquarters in D.C., and since
they've been sued for millions of dollars, they can't afford to pay for
our expenses back home," Scott explained. "Hank's going to be in Manhattan
for the next several months, Logan's God knows where, and it looks like
we're going to have to fend for ourselves for a while."
Jean shrugged.
"Well...if anything that
being one of the X-Men's taught us, it's to be resourceful," she murmured
comfortingly. "We'll pull through." Getting up, she added, "I'll go break
the bad news to the other guys."
"Right," Scott replied.
"I'll go buy a bunch of newspapers, and we can all start looking for jobs
right away."
Meanwhile, over at the Brotherhood
home, the newly-dubbed "Toxic Twins" and Co. were going through the same
dilemma as the X-Men, having just found out their supposed guardian had
ditched them and left them penniless. Unlike Scott and Jean, however, the
Brotherhood was handling being completely broke a bit harder than one would
expect.
"Did
you find them?" Pietro asked anxiously. Lance shot him an annoyed glare.
"No,"
he gritted out through clenched teeth.
"Well,
keep looking!" Pietro fretted, and continued on making a complete mess
of Mystique's immaculate room. Just then, Wanda emerged from the basement.
"Not
there," she grunted coldly. Pietro groaned, one of Mystique's leather tops
tangled all over his silver hair. He looked hopefully at Fred and Todd
as the latter returned from the kitchen, but Todd remained silent while
Freddy remorsefully shook his head and bit into a jelly-filled donut. Pietro
wailed.
"What
are we gonna do?" he fretted in a shrill, high-pitched voice. "We still
can't find Mystique's stash, and we've already gotten our gas and water
cut off! The electricity's bound to be next, and I don't know what I'd
do without my hair dryer to make my gorgeous silver mane as perfect and
lustrous as it rightfully should be!"
"Why
don't we do what logical, normal human beings would do?" Wanda suggested.
Pietro shot her a stupid look.
"You
mean apply to welfare?" he asked hopefully. Lance blanched visibly at the
thought.
"What!
No way! What will Kitty think of me if I have to seek financial help from
a bunch of soccer moms who worship Martha Stewart?!" he bellowed. Wanda
shook her head, looking disgusted with both's reactions to her words.
"No,
not welfare," she grunted, and was about to say something more when her
oh so charming brother cut her off again.
"You
mean rob Baldy for all his cash?" he guessed. Lance looked like he would
have a heart attack if that were to happen.
"What!
No way! What will Kitty think of me if I have to mug some crippled know-it-all
bald guy who just happens to be her guardian?!" he shrieked. Wanda's eyebrow
twitched.
"No,
not Xavier either," she muttered, but before she could say anything else,
Pietro cut her off again.
"You
mean--" he started to say, then eeped when he found himself staring down
at Wanda from his so very relaxing position, a good ten inches off the
ground and being throttled by his furious sister.
"Pietro,
shut up!" Wanda growled, nearly strangling her twin in her zeal. Pietro's
blue eyes widened, but for once he stayed silent. Wanda, satisfied that
she could at last continue, finally brought forth her suggestion.
"What
I was going to say," she began, "is to get jobs."
Dun dun dun!
*Okay, now that the prologue is over, remember that you can still submit as many characters as you want, for any of the sections. I'll be officially closing the "auditions" for Lance and Pietro on Wednesday, which is when I'll have picked the characters and posted the cast list, but aside from those two, submissions are still as open as ever for the other characters, all the way up until their section in the interfic is up. So submit away, especially for Lance and Pie-Pie--um, I mean, Pietro (thinks she's been hanging around the other crazed fangirls for too long!)--cause I still need characters for that section of the interfic, especially for the managers, producers, and reporter. And, since I tend to write crazy, senseless humor fics, make them as outlandish and wacky as possible; normal people aren't fun to write about! *pouts*
