*All right, this chapter's really short, but it still serves its purpose of being pretty funny (I hope!) and wrap up Part I: (A) Motley Crew (No, Really!) as well as give you a little preview of what's going to happen during not Rogue's, but rather, Wanda's section ^_^



Chapter Ten: Farewell to the Jungle (Oh, like you could come up with a better title!)


He still had nightmares about it. The particular night upon their arrival had been bitterly cold, with howling winds and a terrifying thunderstorm. Lance had been slouching boredly on a couch, Todd was complaining about how much he hated not having cable, and he himself had managed to sucker Freddy into playing an innocent game of Go Fish with him with the next month's groceries at stake. And then...whang! The cracked wooden doors had swung wide open, and the most horrifying sight of his life barged straight in, much like the way Roxy Oyama had when she'd hauled off Ömega on their half-assed mini-tour, only one hundred times scarier.
"Guess who's back?"
Had it been any other person, he would have remarked, in his usual smart-ass way and with an insolent little smirk, that she seemed to have lost some weight...but then again, this wasn't just any other person. Mystique had returned! Dun dun dun! And she'd brought back Wanda with her! Double dun dun dun! And right then and there, in that one single evening, the two most terrifying of terrors in high heels had returned to make his life a living hell! Dun dun dun!

"Ahhhhh!"
Lance tossed a backwards glance from where he was, seated on a metal folding chair and casually tuning his guitar, to both cluck his tongue sympathetically and try to not give Pietro a hard time for screaming like a little girl. Poor little guy--he's having those Mystique-and-Wanda nightmares again, he thought to himself, watching as Pietro scrambled up from where he'd been napping to hobble over to the sink and fetch a glass of cold water. The rest of the band were out bar-hopping, Roxy had taken off to buy a new car with her winnings from the concert, and Jennifer was shopping for groceries, leaving the two guitarists alone in the apartment. Outside, torrents of icy cold water plastered furiously against the apartment walls, signaling that the thunderstorm was far from being over. Inside, Pietro was thanking his lucky stars that, despite the fact that it was an eerily similar night to Mystique and Wanda's reappearance, he could rest assured that the Toxic Twins in Lance and Pietro were very safe from the (other, even more terrifying) Terror Twins in Mystique and Wanda.

And then, the door to the apartment slammed wide open in a furious rush of howling winds, and an ominous figure stood silhouetted against the door frame.
"Guess who's back?" she--the shadowy silhouette was obviously a female--sang out in a taunting tone.
"Ahhhhh!" This time, both Toxic Twins screamed like terrified little girls, as Pietro called out hopefully, "Roxy?"
A tall, blue-skinned, redheaded woman dressed in a black leather halter top and matching miniskirt, stepped into the trashed apartment to prove otherwise. Pietro let out a terrified little squeak, as Lance eeped in dismay, "Um...Mystique?" The older half of Pietro's Terror Twins sneered back at him, before barging full force into the living room, being careful not to slip on the discarded bottles of cheap wine, as the older Brotherhood member ventured timidly, "Er...if it's okay for me to ask...why are you here?" In response, Mystique tossed the two boys a rolled-up newspaper, and instructed, "Read the headline." Lance and Pietro obediently opened up the folded pages, and read diligently.
"Um...Eleven-Year-Old Crashes Family's Farm Vehicle Into Ditch?" Lance guessed, as Pietro clucked his tongue, adding, "Oh, what a shame, I can see why you would want to bring this to our attention."
"Yeah," Lance chipped in his two cents. "Those damn farm vehicles, always so unpredictable, and the poor farmers' sons have to start driving them before they've even finished grade school! Tis an outrage!"
"No kidding, and the insurance is just atrocious," Pietro chattered on. "I saw this on a TV documentary on FOX once, and did you know that in order for the injured party to receive their checks, they have to carry around a caged chicken in the back seat at all times?"
Lance huffed, insulted.
"Why, that is just totally and completely unreasonable--!" he started to babble.
"That's not the headline I wanted you two idiots to read!" Mystique exploded furiously, and Lance and Pietro stopped amidst their highly intelligent discussion of caged chickens and farm vehicles to eep like scared mice and hide behind their newspaper.
"The other headline," Mystique was instructing impatiently, jabbing at said headline with her index finger. This time, it was Pietro who read the words, murmuring out loud, "Uh, you mean...Spring Trial Set For The Case Of The State Of New York vs. Wanda Maximoff?"
"Yes, that's the one," Mystique grouched. "Now do you two brainless boys have an idea of why I've been forced to come back here and bail you out of trouble just as I was about to bully, erm sucker, erm manipulate, erm convince a group of disgruntled (and highly idiotic!) mutants to donate their hard-earned money to our cause?" Lance, meanwhile, was reading over the headline again, muttering, "Boy, here were Pietro and I, landing ourselves in jail for one night over charges of assaulting a critic, and Wanda just has to go and outshine us by actually getting herself a court trial and everything!" Mystique's eyebrows flew up.
"You were in jail?" she hissed. Pietro quickly elbowed the older boy silent, tee heeing nervously, "Er...of course not! See, our band mates were, but Lance and I were good little boys, and the only reason we went to the jail was because we had to bail them out!" Quickly attempting to swerve the subject to something besides their own imprisonment, Pietro added nonchalantly, "So, about my ultra-scary twin sister getting herself a trial..." Mystique shrugged.
"She didn't explain too much over the phone," the shapeshifting mutant admitted. "All she mentioned was something about an Ally McBeal lookalike and her musclehead husband trying to hit on her."
"Ew!" Lance and Pietro half-shrieked, half-giggled nasally in unison.

Mystique began heading out the door, dragging her two boys with her by the ears, as they whined, "Ow! Owowowowowow!" As soon as they were out of the apartment, the evil dictator--um, that is, Mystique--turned around and said sarcastically, "So, speaking of muscleheads...any idea what might have instigated this?!" And she thrust a copy of a glossy magazine into their faces. Lance and Pietro leaned back, and promptly found themselves staring into a seamlessly pieced together collage of glossy band photos, among them a concert picture of Rikki crudely flipping someone off as he dove offstage to start a riot at one of Ömega's own club dates, a photo of Jericho looking up into the camera as he grinned stupidly from amidst a throng of skimpily-clad groupies, toasting whomever was taking the picture with his half-drained bottle of Jack Daniel's, and, of course, the infamous cover picture of the inebriated Lance and Pietro wearing their guitars and nothing else. Above the incriminating cover, splashed across the page in bold red letters, was the headline, "Would You Let Your Daughter Date An Ömega Boy?" followed by Jericho's so very intelligent quote of how he and Heather Locklear were just like the Brothers Van Halen--they shared the same name, but were not related in any way, unlike, say, Joe Perry and Joe Piscopo--and finally, the by-line of none other than Lola Lolita. Lance and Pietro's eyes boggled out at the unflattering cover shot and even more unflattering cover story, and tee heed guiltily in unison, "Oh...eh heh, see the funniest thing..." Mystique, meanwhile, was waving the magazine wildly about, screeching, "Here I was, leaving the two of you in charge, and you not only allow Wanda to land herself a court trial, but go ahead and pose nude for a magazine, you two sluts, how the hell am I ever going to strike fear into the heart of Xavier by making him think that my army of mutants are tough as steel when he sees the two of you inebriated and naked and acting as though you're proud of it, and another thing, Aqua Net hairpsray and burgundy eye makeup is most definitely not on the Brotherhood's agenda...!" Lance and Pietro sighed, as Mystique dragged them off into a waiting black car to take them to the county municipal courts where Wanda was being held. It looked like a long, long drive ahead of them.


*By the way, in case you're curious, Pietro's "documentary" about the chicken in the farm vehicle insurance policy was actually from an episode of Married...With Children ^_^. Anyways, let's see, so in the end, Lola did get her revenge on the band for setting her up at the gas station in Chapter Seven! End of Part I; I'll try to post a cast list for Rogue's part in a few days, so in the meantime, start submitting characters for her section, especially teenyboppers (preferably some males) and like five more teen pop idols (try to sprinkle in some males too, like parodies of Enrique Iglesias or whatever)! I'll try to post something witty for Rogue's Cast List, like I did with the ten commandments of heavy metal and everything, but keep in mind that I don't know a whole lot about teen pop, so don't go jumping on me if that doesn't happen! x_x