Still sticking? Reviews would be helpful. fanfiction.net insists that all my bold and normal text look the same, so I'm leaving the chapter title in the document so people can distinguish between the preamble and the actual story. Keep reading, the story picks up.

Since I put quotes in the other chapters, I'm gonna put one here as well:

"Shout, shout, let it all out These are the things I can do without,"

From 'Shout2000' by Disturbed. All songs mentioned thus far, and later on as well, are copyright their original owners, and I am in no way, shape or form, plagiarising music. yes. that should do it.

*-*

Chapter Three: What Lance found.

Scott was furious with himself. He hadn't expected to lose control and shoot Lance. The insults had been very infuriating, but he should have had more control. As it happened, the blame for the defeat rested solely on his shoulders. Jean wasn't speaking to him, Rogue and Evan didn't speak to him as much as they did before. Kurt seemed more apologetic than anything else, and Kurt's constant assuring that it wasn't really Scott's fault had gotten on his nerves, and he now avoided speaking to Kurt. Kitty hadn't been there, but from the looks on the others faces; she didn't speak to Scott as freely as she would have done. That left Remy. He had been in the van when the incident occurred, but after the incident happened, most of what he said to Scott was along the lines of-

"Hey! Watch it, mon ami. Remy don' t'ink a hole in his chest is gon' t' attract de chicks."

They were both having extra danger room sessions. In his anger over losing control, Scott had given himself a month of extra practice as well. It wasn't working as well as he might have hoped, three days after the incident, he still let his anger override his control, and several times it was merely luck or survival skill that helped Remy leave the sessions in one piece. Now Remy treated him like a walking time-bomb, waiting to explode.

*-*

After the session ended, they both walked to the kitchen to get something to drink. It was well past midnight, and Remy kept a safe distance between him and Scott; no telling if he snapped and decided that killing Remy would atone for his past sins. When they reached the kitchen, and got their drinks, Scott motioned for Remy to sit down. He did so, as far away from Scott as he could without looking as if he was avoiding him.

Scott spoke, not looking at Remy; "You have no idea what it's like, being a leader." Remy opened his mouth to reply but Scott continued. "There is so much pressure on you to do well. The whole team's failure or success may depend on you. Like it did then."

"Uh, Scott?" Scott ignored him.

"I didn't mean to lose control, I just couldn't help myself. The whole team lost its faith in me when I shot at Lance." Remy stared at him. There was no telling exactly when a man lost his mind. He reached for the soda can, preparing to charge and throw it at a moments notice. Scott missed all this; he seemed to inspecting his feet.

"A team without faith in its leader has no purpose, no direction. Tomorrow, I am going to resign, maybe even leave the institute." He finally looked at Remy. "I'm telling you this because the team must have a new leader. Tomorrow I will nominate you to be the leader." Remy gaped. The man had lost his mind. Remy, leader? The very idea was preposterous. He had a sudden image of teaching all the new recruits how to pretend to be sober when they were drunk. But then a thought crossed his mind; as leader, he couldn't drink or steal, or even cheat at cards. He had to be upright, honest, an example for others! And he knew that Xavier would make him swear by oaths he dared not break to be all those things and more. He glanced at Scott, who looked utterly defeated. He had to stop Scott, or start experiencing withdrawal symptoms.

"I know you have weaknesses, but I also know you will be a fine leader. Better than I ever-" Remy cut him off, thinking rapidly. He had to convince Scott to continue as leader. If his empathy wasn't working, he would beat up Scott; trash the institute, anything to get out of being leader.

"Are you stupid?" He asked. Scott looked up in surprise. "Y' discuss dese things wi' Remy, at freakin' ONE IN DE NIGHT! D' y' t'ink Remy is de back of a woman's mag'zine? Has he nothing else better t' do at dis time?" He was on his feet now, towering over the still seated Scott. "Is dis de time t' abandon de X-men, in de hour of dere greatest need?" He was acting too melodramatic for sure, but for the life of him, he couldn't think of anything else. He hoped his empathy was working, and in some permanent form. "Dey need a leader to guide dem, and I'm no leader." (and I wan' t' be able t' drink) he added silently. Scott didn't look convinced. He looked bewildered for certain, but not convinced. Remy sighed. "Pour l'amour de Dieu! Will you listen to reason homme? Everyone needs you." He grabbed Scott's shoulders, trying to look entreating. Now they would find out if his empathy was working. "You need t' be our leader. We - need - you."

There was a scuffing noise behind Remy, feet being rubbed in embarrassment. He turned around. Kitty stood in the doorway, looking at him grabbing Scott and bending over him. It seemed she had heard him say 'We need you.' She spoke, her eyes wide open, staring at nothing and her voice uncommonly bright.

"I came in here for a glass of water. I found none and I left. I did not see Remy and Scott in the kitchen. This is all a bad dream. When I wake up, I won't remember this." She turned around and walked away, saying "I will not say goodbye to anyone in the kitchen, because there isn't like, anyone there. Especially not Remy and Scott." Her voice faded away and Remy looked back at Scott. He would flirt with Kitty later, to show he wasn't- what he had looked like.

"So homme, what do you say? Are you still our leader?" Scott nodded. Remy let out the breath he had been holding. "Okay den, with y'r leave, dis Cajun needs t' get some shuteye." Scott nodded again. Remy added (because Scott showed as much life as a stone,) "Y' will be a good leader." Scott nodded. "Y' will go t' sleep now, 'cause y' need y'r sleep." Scott nodded again. Remy decided, that if his empathy was working, he might as well say the other thing. "Y' will tell Rogue t' stop being mad at me." Scott stirred, a faint smile on his lips.

"That I can't do, Cajun." Remy stared at him; he hadn't realised his empathy wasn't working. Scott smiled. "You can go to sleep. I'll be doing something before I go. Go on, you don't need to be so concerned about your leader." Remy grinned as well. "Good one, homme. And bonne nuit t' y'." He went to his bedroom. A bottle of brandy was lying under his bed, screaming to be drunk.

*-*

Lance was pacing about in his room. Four days had passed since he had shown up Summers, four days since Mystique had taken the thing and locked herself in her room. Four days, and she still did not know how to work it. Lance knew he wasn't going to tell her that to her face though; he had something called 'survival instinct'.

He resigned himself to another day spent waiting, probably spent in his room daydreaming the same thing he always daydreamed about in his spare time; King Alvers, who would save the world from the evil dragon (who had one eye which shot out red beams). Except in today's daydream, there would be a French travelling court- jester who could make things explode, who had angered the king, and could only appease him by kissing the odious other jester to try and turn him back into the toad he had been.

Todd bounced into the room a little while later to find Lance staring languorously at his wall, a pleased expression on his face. Todd thought he heard him say, "Now kiss until I command you to stop." *Geez, I wish Kitty'd say she liked him, prob'ly stop him from dreamin' 'bout her all the time* Todd thought. Aloud he said "Lance, Mystique wants you. Now."

Lance continued staring at the wall. "Call me King Alvers," he muttered, not even looking at Todd. "Or I'll make it a hundred kisses. Everyday for a year." Then he frowned. "And do not mention the name of the evil gorgon again. Saying her name brings bad luck."

Todd stared at him. Then he thought that he should leave Lance to face Mystiques' wrath for not coming, but that would mean Mystique would be angry at Lance for not coming, and at Todd for not forcing him to come. Lance would be in trouble with Mystique, and he would take it out on Todd for not forcing him to come. If however, he roused Lance out of his stupor, and made him come to Mystique, he would only have to contend with Lance being displeased. He gulped. Being a toad meant it was extremely easy to get stepped on.

There was only one choice, really. He hopped up to Lance and shook his hand in front of Lance's face. Lance wrinkled his nose and focussed on Todd. His head was less than a foot away from Lance's, and Lance yelped and shot out of his chair. He grabbed Todd by his throat, while trying to keep as much distance between them as possible. Not an easy job.

"You weren't trying to kiss me, by any chance, were you?" He asked with feigned casualness. Todd thought the rigours of leadership had driven their leader off the deep end. "Hey, um, fearless leader?" He waited until he was sure he had Lance's undivided attention. Taking a deep breath, he continued, "WHY THE HELL WOULD I WANT TO KISS YOU?? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND??" Taking another deep breath to calm himself, he tried to sound reasonable. "You've been acting all weird since that French dude took control of you or something. If anything, I should be creepin' out, it was you who took me into your arms."

Lance muttered something that sounded like "I'm the one who takes baths." In his normal voice he said "What is it? If you interrupted me to borrow my socks or something, you're in for it."

"Naw, I changed socks about three days ago. I came 'cause Mystique wants you."

"Hmm, well." Lance frowned. "She sent you." He got up and walked out. At the door, he paused and turned. "But we're still gonna have a talk when I get back."

Todd gulped. He made a squishing sound. The toad was about to be stepped on.

*-*

Mystique was waiting when Lance walked in. She nodded curtly to him, and resumed her inspection of the artefact she was holding. He recognized it as the object he had brought back, now thoroughly cleaned. He waited for Mystique to tell him why she had called him, but she still looked all over the artefact. He waited a bit, then a bit more. The inspection showed no signs of ending. He tried seeing how long he could hold his breath. How fascinating could a plain black pyramid be?

Finally, when he was ready to punch something out of frustration, Mystique looked up. She seemed to have been ignoring the tremors going on for the past few minutes.

"Fascinating object, this." She said, waving it at him. "All the more interesting because of the challenge it posed. Why, it took me four days to uncover its mystery." She seemed positively shocked at the very idea. "And we all know how good I am at this sort of stuff."

She looked at Lance, and seemed to decide he would break something if she didn't get to the point. That made her frown, but she obliged him.

"This device can release and control a powerful monster, buried a few miles from here. I found another object a few weeks ago, that revealed the presence of the monster to me. It also allows control of the monster, but to a much lesser extent." She picked up what seemed to be a smaller, bent triangle and showed it to him. "I was able to control the monster slightly, but this device was not even powerful enough to wake him and make him escape."

Lance interrupted "Huh? If he was sleeping, what good was it controlling him?" Mystique waved a hand impatiently.

"I was getting to that. Even when asleep, the monster emits resonances. These resonances change the mood of humans and mutants. Fear, depression, anger and the like can be induced in this way. I used it to control Scott Summers when your teams met, and made him act so foolishly." She laughed at the shock on Lances' face. "What, you thought your pathetic insults angered him enough to make him lose control that way? Whatever I think of Xavier's protégés, I admit their leader is quite sensible."

Lance still felt shocked, but he calmed down with an effort. "Okay, so now what do we do?"

Mystique smiled.

"We wake the monster." She said as she pressed the triangle. It began to glow and it seemed to Lance that a cry filled the air, a faint cry of anger. He shivered uncontrollably.

*-*

At the Xavier mansion, the mutants heard the noise too. It seemed to grow louder the longer they listened. All the teens were in the dining room, and they made Kurt bamf to the roof to try and see what was happening. He bamfed back scant seconds later, horror on his face.

"Th- the roof! Hurry!" he said, and grabbed the nearest person, which happened to be Evan, and bamfed back. The others were left to go by more conventional means. However, this being the X-men, Jean grabbed Kitty and flew up, while Rogue, being super-strong, took Scott and Remy.

"This doesn't mean ya'll are forgiven." She called down to Remy. Remy, hanging onto a boot for dear life, looked up. "I know" he muttered, trying to avoid the trees. Scott, who was holding one of her hands in each of his, looked down and smiled. Remy let go with one hand long enough to give him the finger.

They got to the roof alongside Jean and Kitty, and ran to where Kurt and Evan were standing, at the top.

Kitty got there first. "Like, what the f-, uh, I mean-"

Remy got there second, and said what Kitty was too polite to say.

"What de fuck is dat??"

Rogue got there third, chiding Remy as she did so. "Now Remy, ah know how coarse ya'll are, but reahly, ya should have more contro-" she cut off as she saw what the other four were seeing. "Oh ma good God."

Scott and Jean arrived last, and both their eyes widened in shock as they saw the monster.

It was about eleven feet tall.

It was built like a muscular man, if the man was greenish and covered in scales.

It was destroying buildings and cars with as much ease as Juggernaut ever had.

It was heading for-

"Um, maybe he just wants to, like, do some shopping?"

"Thank God I'm nowhere near the mall," Scott said. Jean looked at him. "Uh, I mean we," She raised an eyebrow. "Uh, thank God none of us are near the mall?" Then he thought of something. "Oh, yeah, right, of course. X men! To the mall!"

Irately, he noticed Kurt giggling. The rest of the X-men were staring at him, and he suspected Kitty was hiding a smile. "The hell are you waiting for? Go!" As he watched them get off the roof, he could only think; *what is going wrong with me?*