Erik was really beginning to master the art of happiness. Now that he had
bridged the gap between himself and Pietro and sent Colossus away, he
yearned to do more good deeds.
There was a rather urgent matter that needed to be addressed. He had never noticed before that Pyro was a little mentally unstable, having been in a similar state himself. Now that his eyes had been opened, however, he realised that the Aussie had a less than healthy obsession with fire. Pyro was very rarely seen without his lighter or some other source of flame and did not seem to have heeded the age-old advice given to every youngster that is "Don't Play With Fire Or You'll Get Burnt".
It was not really Pyro getting burnt that was among Erik's chief concerns, but he did fear for the hideout. More often than not, the fire lover would absent-mindedly leave a match burning on one of Master's prized Persian rugs. He was often caught surreptitiously putting a flame to a new material, just to see how it burnt. This had not been so bad until Erik woke one morning to find that his underwear draw consisted of nothing but ashes.
He also feared that Pyro was a bad influence on young Pietro. Had the boy not, in the midst of his father-hating teenage-angst burnt all his clothes after all?
It would be sensible to mention at this point that Erik, now having no clothes or underwear, was not walking around naked but had borrowed a few things from his absentee Sabretooth's wardrobe.
But above all reasons to sort out Pyro's fire obsession was the fact that everybody had become slightly scared of him. Since half his hair had been burnt off in an unfortunate accident courtesy of Pyro, Gambit had been keeping his distance. Now that his hair had gone, when Pyro flicked his lighter the Cajun's hands went protectively to his crotch instead.
Pietro had gone through the emotional torment of watching the Antipodean pyromaniac flick his lighter on and off repeatedly to the Doors' classic 'Light My Fire', sometimes crooning into the flame like it were a microphone. Although he had laughed about it later with his father, the memory still plagued him at night.
"Dat man need a hobby," Gambit had remarked as he flicked through Triple Breasted Women, a bead of sweat gathering on his brow.
A hobby was most certainly what Pyro needed. Erik began a search in the local papers for anything to take the mad mutant's mind off such a dangerously destructive element.
Flower Arranging seemed a little too feminine and might possibly insult the mutant's manhood. Basket Weaving had been a prime choice until Erik realised that baskets were rather. flammable.
And there was no way in hell that Pyro would go to ballet classes without a fight.
Erik was just giving up hope, reclining with a gin and tonic when he heard a loud clatter from the Cajun's room. This was not unusual. What Gambit did alone in his room was never questioned. However, what was strange was the stream of French expletives that followed as Gambit entered the room brandishing something large and brassy.
"Dis t'ing just fallen on my head!" he shouted indignantly.
"Oh dear," Erik murmured tenderly, using the tone he'd heard parents use on television when their children had got- what was it?- a 'Boo Boo'. He was rather hoping he wouldn't have to kiss it better like the nauseating parents often did.
Then, he caught sight of Gambit's instrument of torture. And indeed, it was an instrument, a trombone nonetheless. Quite where the trombone had come from or why it had fallen on the Cajun's head was a mystery.
"Gambit, could I see that trombone?" The Acolyte rubbed his sore head and passed it to his boss, more pleased to get rid of it than anything.
Erik inspected the trombone and put it to his lips. He hadn't the faintest how to operate the instrument, but found that the loud, blaring note that followed was quite pleasing. Yes, this little instrument could keep him quite busy.
And if it could keep him, malevolent manipulator of metals amused then why not somebody else? Why not-
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked the Cajun, who very much hoped that he wasn't for he had been engrossed in a daydream about himself, that Lady Deathstrike and a large pot of marmalade until then.
Before Gambit could even think of replying, Erik was on the phone, calling every music tutor listed in the yellow pages.
*
Later that day, when Pyro was presented with the trombone, he immediately wondered how hot a fire would have to be to melt it. He'd heard that brass- or was it copper?- burnt with a green flame. Yes, he'd seen a lot of flames in his life but none of them had been green!
Little did he know that whilst he was dreaming of verdant blazes, Gambit had successfully removed the beloved lighter from his back pocket. Erik had been reluctant to let the lusty Cajun go anywhere near the mutant's posterior, but was relieved to see that Gambit gave only the tiniest of gropes.
Then, Pyro was sent to his first trombone lesson. Admittedly, he had been fooled into thinking he was going to a welding shop with the instrument where he would finally be allowed to use a blowtorch. This was simply because unless the prospect of fire was included, the Aussie would not be interested and the whole scheme would fail or indeed, go up in flames.
Whilst Pyro was gone, Gambit, Erik and Pietro searched the hideout for matches, lighters, flamethrowers and the like. They had managed to find a secret stash of matches in Pyro's wardrobe containing no less than sixty boxes. The pyromaniac had hidden nineteen extra lighters around the place and left a rather foolish note on the fridge reminding himself to buy a blowtorch.
They awaited the moment of the mutant's return, knowing that it could go either way. It was mainly for this reason that Pietro stood armed with a fire extinguisher and Gambit a bucket of sand, just in case.
However, they needn't have worried. The magic of Erik's happiness had worked miracles again, which was plain for all to see when Pyro returned home with a relatively less manic grin on his face that almost pass for normal. When asked if he liked it, he replied that it was better than any stupid welding could have been. Which, considering that welding included a blowtorch, the object of his fervent desires; could only have been a good omen.
The fire worshipper had nor even noticed that his lighter was missing, so in awe was he of the trombone.
"Look what I can do, mate," Pyro gloated as he burst into a wholly tuneless yet not unenthusiastic rendition of 'Oh When The Saints Go Marching In' for the hundredth time.
Erik rather feared he had created a monster.
*
So, with Pyro's fire obsession cured, though it was debatable whether the Aussie was any more sane, Erik turned his attentions to the insatiable Gambit. There was no doubt about it, the Cajun was a pervert extraordinaire. His favourite activity was looking at women. Fat women, thin women, triple breasted- he wasn't picky.
Erik also knew that Gambit had a gigantic collection of pornographic material. He suspected that this was why his son had become so close to the Cajun. Unlike Pietro, however, Gambit made no attempt to hide the fact that he was gawking at naked women. If he was watching Lesbian Spank Inferno and somebody else entered the room, he would not blush and change the channel but invite them to sit down as he gave a helpful running commentary.
It was blindingly obvious that Gambit needed somebody in his life. It would stop him from spending such long amounts of time in the bathroom at any accounts. Deep down, Erik suspected that Gambit might be quite a romantic and love was what he needed. He couldn't let the Cajun live the rest of his life lusting after centrefolds and paused pictures on the television screen- it just wasn't healthy.
If he could get Gambit a real woman.
Erik's heart skipped a beat. He could. Of course he could- he had done greater things these past few days than he had in decades. All it would take was a little scrap of paper, some thoughtful words and the help of the underground mutant newspaper 'X'.
As Erik put pen to paper, he thought carefully about Gambit's best qualities.
Did auburn or russet hair sound more attractive? Sculpted, muscular or toned? What colour best described those eyes- crimson? Dare he even think about mentioning Gambit's hobbies?
'CAJUN CHARMER, 23,' he wrote, having no idea how old the Cajun Charmer actually was. He was rather proud of the alliteration in Cajun Charmer, thinking it sounded exciting.
'SEEKS LADY TO SWEEP OFF HER FEET. LIVING IN NY. LONG, AUBURN HAIR AND DEVILISH EYES. TALL, FIT AND TONED. FUNNY, CHARMING AND ROMANTIC. APPRECIATES THE FINER THINGS IN LIFE,' wrote Erik, for want of a better way to phrase 'worships the female anatomy'.
'ENJOYS FINE ART AND CINEMA.' Well, he spent a lot of time looking at pictures. And yes, there was a genre of cinema he particularly enjoyed.
'REQUESTS LADY WITH GOOD SENSE OF FUN WHO ENJOYS TO BE ACTIVE,' Erik thought that was a more delicate way of putting 'must be sexually obsessed'.
'FANCY A RENDEZVOUS?' Erik smiled triumphantly. That French word was the icing on the cake. Gambit sounded utterly irresistible from his careful wording.
He scrawled in the details of where he expected hopeful masses of females would reply to, scribbled an address on the back and with a knowing smile sent Pietro to the post box.
*
The hopeful masses of young females did not let Erik down. At eight o' clock precisely on Monday morning, a neat stack of envelopes appeared in the letter box. Erik and his panel of judges, who coincidentally happened to be Pyro and Pietro, spent the rest of the morning reviewing candidates locked up in the training room.
Pyro thought he had found a winner with a certain girl who had left not a name but a question mark. He thought the element of mystery was rather erotic. However, the lady had written very little about herself and at the end of her letter she had written 'NO TOUCHING'. And of course, Gambit wasn't the type to keep his hands to himself.
Erik's favourite had class, charm and wit but she was a few decades too old for Gambit. In fact, she was really much nearer Erik's age and seemed to suit his tastes a lot more than the Cajun's. Erik was so taken with her that he fought valiantly for her case, until realising that he didn't want Gambit to have her so much as he wanted her himself.
Pietro had found a girl in her mid-twenties who described herself as fun- loving and very, very active. She had also claimed that she was sexy, which they all thought was an added bonus. She had even been so kind as to include a picture, which Pietro stared at for three minutes flat with his mouth open before showing it to the panel. It was firmly agreed that she was jaw-droppingly gorgeous and sounded like a good match for the Cajun Charmer.
Some of the letters weren't quite so promising. Erik had found a particularly suspicious letter which gave an accurate description of his friend Mystique. Pietro had found a hideously mis-spelt postcard with sexual content that would make even Gambit, Professor of Pornography, blush. There were several advertisements for whores and bizarrely, a request from a housewife for Gambit to come and unplug her drain (no innuendo intended).
In the end, they decided upon Pietro's beautiful choice. Erik scrawled a short message asking her to meet at a bar downtown and that was that.
Love was in the air for the Ragin' Cajun, and he didn't even know it.
*
Within a few weeks, Pyro had mastered 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' and Gambit was getting on famously with the beautiful Belinda. So famously, in fact, that the Cajun walked around with a sickening smile on his face and was often known to step out in the middle of the night to steal flowers from people's very graves, just for his Lindy.
Pyro had rarely touched a flame in days. It did seem that his obsession had been transferred to the trombone, but at least the musical instrument was not life-threateningly dangerous when careful precautions such as ear plugs were taken.
And as far as Erik knew, Gambit hadn't looked at a single naked woman apart from Belinda since meeting her. This did mean that young Pietro had access to his entire collection, but Erik was not prepared to come between his son and his raging hormones.
The change that had come over the Acolytes was astonishing. Everything looked and felt better, and there was not a person in that hideout without a smile.
And the biggest smile, of course, belonged to Mr Erik Lehnsherr, miracle worker.
There was a rather urgent matter that needed to be addressed. He had never noticed before that Pyro was a little mentally unstable, having been in a similar state himself. Now that his eyes had been opened, however, he realised that the Aussie had a less than healthy obsession with fire. Pyro was very rarely seen without his lighter or some other source of flame and did not seem to have heeded the age-old advice given to every youngster that is "Don't Play With Fire Or You'll Get Burnt".
It was not really Pyro getting burnt that was among Erik's chief concerns, but he did fear for the hideout. More often than not, the fire lover would absent-mindedly leave a match burning on one of Master's prized Persian rugs. He was often caught surreptitiously putting a flame to a new material, just to see how it burnt. This had not been so bad until Erik woke one morning to find that his underwear draw consisted of nothing but ashes.
He also feared that Pyro was a bad influence on young Pietro. Had the boy not, in the midst of his father-hating teenage-angst burnt all his clothes after all?
It would be sensible to mention at this point that Erik, now having no clothes or underwear, was not walking around naked but had borrowed a few things from his absentee Sabretooth's wardrobe.
But above all reasons to sort out Pyro's fire obsession was the fact that everybody had become slightly scared of him. Since half his hair had been burnt off in an unfortunate accident courtesy of Pyro, Gambit had been keeping his distance. Now that his hair had gone, when Pyro flicked his lighter the Cajun's hands went protectively to his crotch instead.
Pietro had gone through the emotional torment of watching the Antipodean pyromaniac flick his lighter on and off repeatedly to the Doors' classic 'Light My Fire', sometimes crooning into the flame like it were a microphone. Although he had laughed about it later with his father, the memory still plagued him at night.
"Dat man need a hobby," Gambit had remarked as he flicked through Triple Breasted Women, a bead of sweat gathering on his brow.
A hobby was most certainly what Pyro needed. Erik began a search in the local papers for anything to take the mad mutant's mind off such a dangerously destructive element.
Flower Arranging seemed a little too feminine and might possibly insult the mutant's manhood. Basket Weaving had been a prime choice until Erik realised that baskets were rather. flammable.
And there was no way in hell that Pyro would go to ballet classes without a fight.
Erik was just giving up hope, reclining with a gin and tonic when he heard a loud clatter from the Cajun's room. This was not unusual. What Gambit did alone in his room was never questioned. However, what was strange was the stream of French expletives that followed as Gambit entered the room brandishing something large and brassy.
"Dis t'ing just fallen on my head!" he shouted indignantly.
"Oh dear," Erik murmured tenderly, using the tone he'd heard parents use on television when their children had got- what was it?- a 'Boo Boo'. He was rather hoping he wouldn't have to kiss it better like the nauseating parents often did.
Then, he caught sight of Gambit's instrument of torture. And indeed, it was an instrument, a trombone nonetheless. Quite where the trombone had come from or why it had fallen on the Cajun's head was a mystery.
"Gambit, could I see that trombone?" The Acolyte rubbed his sore head and passed it to his boss, more pleased to get rid of it than anything.
Erik inspected the trombone and put it to his lips. He hadn't the faintest how to operate the instrument, but found that the loud, blaring note that followed was quite pleasing. Yes, this little instrument could keep him quite busy.
And if it could keep him, malevolent manipulator of metals amused then why not somebody else? Why not-
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" he asked the Cajun, who very much hoped that he wasn't for he had been engrossed in a daydream about himself, that Lady Deathstrike and a large pot of marmalade until then.
Before Gambit could even think of replying, Erik was on the phone, calling every music tutor listed in the yellow pages.
*
Later that day, when Pyro was presented with the trombone, he immediately wondered how hot a fire would have to be to melt it. He'd heard that brass- or was it copper?- burnt with a green flame. Yes, he'd seen a lot of flames in his life but none of them had been green!
Little did he know that whilst he was dreaming of verdant blazes, Gambit had successfully removed the beloved lighter from his back pocket. Erik had been reluctant to let the lusty Cajun go anywhere near the mutant's posterior, but was relieved to see that Gambit gave only the tiniest of gropes.
Then, Pyro was sent to his first trombone lesson. Admittedly, he had been fooled into thinking he was going to a welding shop with the instrument where he would finally be allowed to use a blowtorch. This was simply because unless the prospect of fire was included, the Aussie would not be interested and the whole scheme would fail or indeed, go up in flames.
Whilst Pyro was gone, Gambit, Erik and Pietro searched the hideout for matches, lighters, flamethrowers and the like. They had managed to find a secret stash of matches in Pyro's wardrobe containing no less than sixty boxes. The pyromaniac had hidden nineteen extra lighters around the place and left a rather foolish note on the fridge reminding himself to buy a blowtorch.
They awaited the moment of the mutant's return, knowing that it could go either way. It was mainly for this reason that Pietro stood armed with a fire extinguisher and Gambit a bucket of sand, just in case.
However, they needn't have worried. The magic of Erik's happiness had worked miracles again, which was plain for all to see when Pyro returned home with a relatively less manic grin on his face that almost pass for normal. When asked if he liked it, he replied that it was better than any stupid welding could have been. Which, considering that welding included a blowtorch, the object of his fervent desires; could only have been a good omen.
The fire worshipper had nor even noticed that his lighter was missing, so in awe was he of the trombone.
"Look what I can do, mate," Pyro gloated as he burst into a wholly tuneless yet not unenthusiastic rendition of 'Oh When The Saints Go Marching In' for the hundredth time.
Erik rather feared he had created a monster.
*
So, with Pyro's fire obsession cured, though it was debatable whether the Aussie was any more sane, Erik turned his attentions to the insatiable Gambit. There was no doubt about it, the Cajun was a pervert extraordinaire. His favourite activity was looking at women. Fat women, thin women, triple breasted- he wasn't picky.
Erik also knew that Gambit had a gigantic collection of pornographic material. He suspected that this was why his son had become so close to the Cajun. Unlike Pietro, however, Gambit made no attempt to hide the fact that he was gawking at naked women. If he was watching Lesbian Spank Inferno and somebody else entered the room, he would not blush and change the channel but invite them to sit down as he gave a helpful running commentary.
It was blindingly obvious that Gambit needed somebody in his life. It would stop him from spending such long amounts of time in the bathroom at any accounts. Deep down, Erik suspected that Gambit might be quite a romantic and love was what he needed. He couldn't let the Cajun live the rest of his life lusting after centrefolds and paused pictures on the television screen- it just wasn't healthy.
If he could get Gambit a real woman.
Erik's heart skipped a beat. He could. Of course he could- he had done greater things these past few days than he had in decades. All it would take was a little scrap of paper, some thoughtful words and the help of the underground mutant newspaper 'X'.
As Erik put pen to paper, he thought carefully about Gambit's best qualities.
Did auburn or russet hair sound more attractive? Sculpted, muscular or toned? What colour best described those eyes- crimson? Dare he even think about mentioning Gambit's hobbies?
'CAJUN CHARMER, 23,' he wrote, having no idea how old the Cajun Charmer actually was. He was rather proud of the alliteration in Cajun Charmer, thinking it sounded exciting.
'SEEKS LADY TO SWEEP OFF HER FEET. LIVING IN NY. LONG, AUBURN HAIR AND DEVILISH EYES. TALL, FIT AND TONED. FUNNY, CHARMING AND ROMANTIC. APPRECIATES THE FINER THINGS IN LIFE,' wrote Erik, for want of a better way to phrase 'worships the female anatomy'.
'ENJOYS FINE ART AND CINEMA.' Well, he spent a lot of time looking at pictures. And yes, there was a genre of cinema he particularly enjoyed.
'REQUESTS LADY WITH GOOD SENSE OF FUN WHO ENJOYS TO BE ACTIVE,' Erik thought that was a more delicate way of putting 'must be sexually obsessed'.
'FANCY A RENDEZVOUS?' Erik smiled triumphantly. That French word was the icing on the cake. Gambit sounded utterly irresistible from his careful wording.
He scrawled in the details of where he expected hopeful masses of females would reply to, scribbled an address on the back and with a knowing smile sent Pietro to the post box.
*
The hopeful masses of young females did not let Erik down. At eight o' clock precisely on Monday morning, a neat stack of envelopes appeared in the letter box. Erik and his panel of judges, who coincidentally happened to be Pyro and Pietro, spent the rest of the morning reviewing candidates locked up in the training room.
Pyro thought he had found a winner with a certain girl who had left not a name but a question mark. He thought the element of mystery was rather erotic. However, the lady had written very little about herself and at the end of her letter she had written 'NO TOUCHING'. And of course, Gambit wasn't the type to keep his hands to himself.
Erik's favourite had class, charm and wit but she was a few decades too old for Gambit. In fact, she was really much nearer Erik's age and seemed to suit his tastes a lot more than the Cajun's. Erik was so taken with her that he fought valiantly for her case, until realising that he didn't want Gambit to have her so much as he wanted her himself.
Pietro had found a girl in her mid-twenties who described herself as fun- loving and very, very active. She had also claimed that she was sexy, which they all thought was an added bonus. She had even been so kind as to include a picture, which Pietro stared at for three minutes flat with his mouth open before showing it to the panel. It was firmly agreed that she was jaw-droppingly gorgeous and sounded like a good match for the Cajun Charmer.
Some of the letters weren't quite so promising. Erik had found a particularly suspicious letter which gave an accurate description of his friend Mystique. Pietro had found a hideously mis-spelt postcard with sexual content that would make even Gambit, Professor of Pornography, blush. There were several advertisements for whores and bizarrely, a request from a housewife for Gambit to come and unplug her drain (no innuendo intended).
In the end, they decided upon Pietro's beautiful choice. Erik scrawled a short message asking her to meet at a bar downtown and that was that.
Love was in the air for the Ragin' Cajun, and he didn't even know it.
*
Within a few weeks, Pyro had mastered 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' and Gambit was getting on famously with the beautiful Belinda. So famously, in fact, that the Cajun walked around with a sickening smile on his face and was often known to step out in the middle of the night to steal flowers from people's very graves, just for his Lindy.
Pyro had rarely touched a flame in days. It did seem that his obsession had been transferred to the trombone, but at least the musical instrument was not life-threateningly dangerous when careful precautions such as ear plugs were taken.
And as far as Erik knew, Gambit hadn't looked at a single naked woman apart from Belinda since meeting her. This did mean that young Pietro had access to his entire collection, but Erik was not prepared to come between his son and his raging hormones.
The change that had come over the Acolytes was astonishing. Everything looked and felt better, and there was not a person in that hideout without a smile.
And the biggest smile, of course, belonged to Mr Erik Lehnsherr, miracle worker.