MEANWHILE!!!
Since time is really obscure in the world of the X-Men, we'll just say that the Green Team is already boarding their boat.
"We've got this locked, mein Freund!" said Kurt, high fiving St. John.
"You said it, mate!" St. John agreed.
"Don't think I don't notice that you two are trying to exclude me on purpose!" said Jean.
"Who said that?" St. John said, looking around.
"Said what?" asked Kurt. "I didn't hear anything."
"Me neither!" said St. John as he and Kurt did a secret handshake that they made up on the train ride.
Jean tried to pretend as though she didn't care as she turned away from them and walked off looking all offended as Kurt and St. John laughed at her behind her back. But it's not like they were trying to be discrete or anything because they were chuckling EVER so warmly especially St. John…we all know HIS laugh.
MEANWHILE!!!
"I wish we could have gotten on THAT boat." Said Rogue as she looked at her ticket and then up at St. John and Kurt waving at them from the boat. "But we don't leave for another forty-five minutes."
"How irritating." Said Wanda. "I hate my life and my father and my brother."
"I hate your brother too." Said Rogue. "He's REALLY annoying."
"I hated him before you did!" said Lance.
"You're both wrong!" said Wanda angrily. "I hated him LONG before any of you even knew who he was!"
"Well, I hated him ever since this race started." Said Rogue with a sigh.
"I hated him ever since he joined the Brotherhood, unjoined the Brotherhood and then REJOINED the Brotherhood!" Lance said, topping Rogue.
"I've hated him ever since we had to share a womb!!" yelled Wanda. But then she paused. "Wait, no. I liked him then. I liked him until I was about… seven or so...that was around the time when my father locked me away and Pietro didn't do anything about it!! Then I started hating them BOTH!!"
"Well, Wanda, you may have hated him the longest but your reason is the worst." Said Lance. "Your father put you in a nuthouse and because little seven year old Pietro didn't do anything to help you, you hate him. He betrayed our friendship and trust with no thought or concern many times and didn't even care about us! That's why I hate him."
"He's just annoying." Said Rogue. They continued to rant and rave about Pietro for forty-five more minutes until their boat came.
MEANWHILE!!!
"Wow!" said Kitty. "Here we are in a train riding through France and there are so many French people around us talking in French!"
"Yeah." Said Remy.
"You can understand them, right?" said Kitty.
"Um…no." said Remy. "No I can't."
"What?" said Kitty with a laugh. "You're lying!"
"It's true." Said Remy. "All I know is a few simple phrases."
"I don't believe you!" Kitty said.
"Believe what you want." Said Remy with a sigh.
Meanwhile, Todd was hopping around the train while singing his own theme song.
"T-O-A-D TOAD!!!" he bellowed.
"We're not with him." Said Kitty to the random people on the train who were giving odd glares. "Oh! You should tell them that we're not with him in French since they probably are all French."
"I wouldn't know what to say." Said Remy. "I'm not sure how that would translate…I hardly know any French at all…the only thing I actually know is Bonjour and all the other French that I've spoken so far I've just made up."
"Stop lying!" Kitty said, sounding kind of annoyed. "I heard that you were in France and you were speaking French the whole time!"
"What?" said Remy, unable to recall such an event that Kitty would potentially hear about.
MEANWHILE!!!
Pietro, Evan and Scott were making good time. They had stolen a little red wagon from some small Italian child and now, with Scott and Evan crammed into it, Pietro pulled it as fast as he could run while carting two reasonably sized males.
Suddenly, Pietro stopped.
"I'm getting really tired." He said as he wiped his forehead. The sun was shining down brightly on the three of them.
"I didn't know you COULD get tired, Pietro." Said Evan.
"Be quiet, Daniels!" snapped Pietro. "If it weren't for your slow flag-finding lack-of-skills, we'd be on the boat to England already!" Then he paused. "Besides, I'm super fast, not super strong. Having to pull YOUR lazy butts around is harder than it looks!"
"Fine, Pietro." Said Scott. "If you're THAT tired, I'LL pull you for a while."
"No thanks, Summers." Said Pietro smugly. "Frankly, I wouldn't be able to stand going so slow. Just let me rest and I'll be fine enough to pull you too slow mos sooner or later."
"Hopefully sooner." Sighed Evan.
"Don't make me leave you behind, Daniels!" said Pietro as he pulled a little yellow bottle out of his pocket and squirted some lotiony stuff in his hands.
"What is that?" asked Scott as he pointed to the lotion.
"Sunscreen." Said Pietro plainly as he rubbed some on his face. "What?! The sun's bright! I burn easily! REALLY easily!"
"Yeah, I've noticed." Said Evan. "Are you Albino or something?"
"What?!" demanded Pietro as if that offended him. "Just because I have extremely fair skin and white hair does NOT make me an Albino!"
"Actually…it does." Said Scott.
"No it doesn't!!" yelled Pietro, throwing a temper tantrum. Then he paused. "Do I have any lotion on my face?"
MEANWHILE!!!
"All right…" said Kurt as they jumped off the boat and stepped into England where all the people have crazy accents. "The name of the game is 'Find the Checkpoint and End This Stupid Race'!"
"Can't you use your telepathy to lock onto whoever's running the checkpoint are and then was can go and follow the special mutant brainwaves they're giving off or something?" asked St. John intelligently to Jean. Jean crossed her arms and turned away.
"Why should I?" she said angrily. "All you two have done is ignore me the entire time we have been a team! If you really want to call it that."
"We're a team!" Kurt said. "A really GOOD team! I mean…we're in FIRST!!"
"No thanks to me!" Jean yelled. "You haven't asked my opinion on anything or asked me to help or even acknowledged my existence."
"Just leave her alone, mate." Said St. John. "If she's going to be like this, then we don't need her!"
"How about we start over and be the GREEN TEAM from now on!" said Kurt, hoping that maybe he'd reach Jean.
"On one condition." Said Jean.
"And what's that?" asked Kurt.
"We have to start over and be the JEAN Team!" she answered.
Kurt and St. John looked at each other with raised eyebrows. They really didn't want their team to be called the Jean Team but then again, who was going to know? So they decided to just give her that and let her THINK that they were all enthusiastic about being the Jean Team when they secretly were just going to make fun of her even MORE behind her back.
MEANWHILE!!!
"And Pietro CLAIMED that my father said it was the best thing to do." Wanda sighed as the Blue Team rode the boat across to England. "But, Pietro has proved to be a chronic liar and it's not like he cared about me ANYWAY so he just doesn't have any ground to stand on." Rogue nodded and sighed.
"Are you two STILL bitching about Pietro?" Lance said, coming out of nowhere.
"Yes." They both answered.
"Well, yeah, Pietro's irritating but I can't say I've ever sat around wasting precious hours of my life complaining about how much I hate him." Lance said.
"I can." Said Wanda. "I had a lot of free time in the asylum." She paused. "Which, might I had, Pietro did ABSOLUTELY nothing to get me out of when he could have easily done so with his speed!" With that, many things exploded and went haywire due to Wanda's ridiculous amount of power that usually comes out when she's angry.
"Whoa…I hate to sound like I'm defending Pietro…" said Lance slowly, observing Wanda's handy work. "But…you really need to lay off him."
"So are you on HIS side?!" Wanda demanded, getting all in Lance's face. Everything around started flying around crazier than ever.
"Um…no!" said Lance nervously. "I hate Pietro too!"
"Good." Said Wanda as she backed off and everything around her calmed down until it eventually stopped moving. "So anyway…"
MEANWHILE!!
"So our boat should be here pretty soon." Said Todd as he held up the three tickets. "Man, this stinks. I hope we're not in last!"
"We could be in first, mon…my friend." Said Remy as he caught himself before letting any careless French slip out.
"You were about to say something in French!" Kitty said. "SAY IT!!"
"We're in France." Said Remy, reading to kill. "Just listen to everyone around us."
"But I want to hear YOU say it." Said Kitty as she started blushing. "Cause you sound really cool."
Remy wasn't about to deny the fact that he was a lady killer but he was getting sick of Kitty clinging to him so he only decided to ignore her previous comment. Todd hopped around aimlessly and rather foolishly until suddenly, a little red wagon as well as the Pink Team came barreling out of nowhere and ran him over.
"I think this is the right place." Said Pietro, shielding his eyes from the sun.
"And with time to spare!" Scott announced triumphantly.
"Hey!" said Evan. "It's the Red Team!"
"What are you doing here?" asked Todd.
"Waiting for the boat?" suggested Pietro as he hardly suppressed his urge to smack Todd for his stupidity.
"I thought we were farther ahead than that…" said Kitty.
"Yeah!" said Todd. "I SAW St. John burn your flag so I assumed you'd NEVER be here!"
"OH!!" said Evan as if he just realized something. "St. John burned our flag! It all comes together now!"
Pietro gave Evan a dope slap just because he knew he could get away easily.
"Would you look at that?" said Todd, glancing at his ticket and then at the boat that was pulling into the harbor. "This is our boat! Can't say the same for you though."
The Pink Team looked at their tickets and then at the boat and then at their watches that they all were equipped with. Then they hung their heads low as Todd laughed at their expense and the Red Team boarded.
"Are we really going to sit back and watch that?!" Scott demanded as he watched a big mechanical arm move a bunch of huge wooden boxes onto the deck of the ship. Evan and Pietro seemed to notice as well. "Hey…you guys thinking what I'm thinking?"
"I think so Scott…" said Evan. "But me and Pippi Longstocking? I mean, what would the children look like?!"
Pietro AND Scott took that opportunity to give Evan a dope slap and then the three of them jumped inside a big wooden box that just so happened to be empty yet was about to be loaded onto the boat anyway. The Pink Team could hardly suppress their childish laughter as they climbed out of the box and onto the deck of the ship.
MEANWHILE!!!
"Well…he should be around here somewhere…" said Jean who was using her powers to locate Jamie…AKA MULTIPLE!!!
It didn't take long for Jean to find him but on their way there, they came across one of those red-clad guards with the tall fuzzy hats and they felt that they simply HAD to make him laugh. (What? With Kurt AND St. John on the team?!)
"Tickle him!" said St. John. "I bet no one's ever thought of THAT!"
"I can't touch him!" said Kurt. "I don't have my image inducer on!"
"And that would affect it…how?" St. John asked.
"I am blue and have two fingers on each hand." Said Kurt. "Not to mention I'm fuzzy."
"I think seeing that would make him stop standing so still!" said St. John. "What do you think, Jean? Do you think seeing a hand like Kurt's for the first time would cause even and English guard to flinch?"
"I don't think I want you guys to do this." Said Jean. "Maybe you should just…um…make him move some other way."
"You know, I bet he's in shock right now because he just heard about us talking about your fuzziness." Said St. John, waving a hand in front of the guard's face.
"He probably gets crazy stories like that all the time." Kurt said. Then they watched the Blue Team run by, back track and then slowly approach the guard.
"Hey…have you guys been trying to get him to move?" Lance asked.
"Yes." Said the Jean Team.
"Well…how about if we FORCE him to move in order to regain his balance!" Lance suggested as his eyes rolled back in his head and then the world started shaking. The guard seemed unfazed and rocked around while standing straight as a board and eventually fell into a crack that Lance had created and tumbled to the center of the earth, still acting as though none of it was even happening.
"Nice going." Said Rogue, rolling her eyes.
"Oops." Said Lance.
The Jean Team and the Blue Team looked at each other and paused. Then the Jean Team broke into a run and ran off but the Blue Team followed since they figured the Jean Team knew where they were going.
"They're following us!!" Kurt yelled as if it didn't look weird that he was galloping on all fours in a public area.
"They're trying to get to the checkpoint!" St. John yelled. "WHY?!"
But then they crashed into someone and when they recovered and stood up, they saw FIVE LITTLE PEOPLE THAT ALL LOOKED REMARKABLY SIMILAR!!! IT WAS JAMIE!! AKA MULTIPLE!! YAY!!
"Looks like we BOTH found him!" Lance said as if it weren't obvious to the world.
"Congratulations!" said Jamie as he gestured toward his multiple selves. "As you can see, my four multiple selves are wearing different colors; pink, green, blue and red…"
"Why did I have to wear pink?" whined the multiple in pink.
"Because you lost in rock, paper, scissors! Remember?" said the multiple in green.
"So anyway…" said Jamie. "We will give them twenty minutes to run off and when the timer goes off, you will need to go off and find them!"
"Twenty minutes?" Rogue said. "Does that give the other two teams that aren't here yet an advantage?"
"Yes." Said Jamie. "What's your point?"
"Never mind…" said Rogue.
"Okay, good!" said Jamie. Then he turned to his clones and ushered for them to skidadle away.
"What'll we do while we wait?" asked Kurt.
Jamie shrugged since he didn't really care.
MEANWHILE!!!
"Hey!!" said Kitty when she saw Scott, Pietro and Evan walk nonchalantly around the corner. "What do you guys think you're doing?!"
"Hanging out." Said Evan as his two team members slapped him five.
"I am SO telling Remy and Todd!" she said as she stormed off. "They'll show you!!"
"Um…what are they gonna do?" said Pietro. "They can't catch me. I'm too fast."
"Yes, as you have previously told us." Said Scott. "Many times."
"Just making sure you remember so you don't mistake me for someone who's slow." Said Pietro, putting his hands up innocently.
"I would NEVER make that mistake." Said Scott as he rolled his eyes.
"You better not." Said Pietro threateningly.
Suddenly, Remy and Todd came around the corner.
"Aw man!" Said Todd. "The moment we pull ahead, you guys have to come and steal that."
"I have nine words for you." Said Remy. He secretly wished he hadn't said that because nine words seems a bit ludicrous. It was just that Kitty was making him unable to think straight. "Get off the boat before I blow something up."
Then he waited as everyone counted to make sure he actually DID only use nine words and not ten or eight.
"We're in the middle of the ocean, Remy." Said Scott. "I hope you don't expect us to actually jump off."
"Find some other way of getting off." Said Remy.
"Do you care that much about a stupid race that you would make us potentially jump off a boat to our watery grave?" asked Evan.
"No…I guess I don't." said Remy.
"WHAT?!" demanded Kitty. "Aren't you going to, like, make them row a lifeboat to shore?"
"There's three of them and only one of me."
"What about us?!" Kitty yelled, gesturing to herself and Todd.
Remy looked at the two. "Um…no." he said.
MEANWHILE!!!
"All right…" said Jamie, staring at his watch. "In two minutes, you can start."
"May the best team win." Said Jean, going up to each individual member of the Blue Team and shaking their hands. Then she looked at St. John and Kurt as if she was a disappointed mother and expected them to do the same. They gave her a look of astonishment because she actually DID expect them to do the same but finally decided to choose their battles and shake the hands of the Blue Team who were equally astounded because of Jean's foolishness.
"Ready…" said Jamie. "Set…GO!!"
Everyone was about to dash off to go and find the Jamie of their color but Wanda zapped each Jean Team member and then Rogue ran up and touched each of them in their state of discombobulation and then the Blue Team cackled at the unconscious Jean Team's expense and ran off to find their Blue Jamie.
"Um…okay." Said Jamie slowly.
