Erik had been engaged in a most pleasant dream involving champagne and
poppy fields when the thunderous sound of the door being ripped off its
hinges brought him back to reality.
Now, any other person may be slightly alarmed to hear such a noise. They might pick up a baseball bat or a rifle, or creep to the basement and call the police. It would be sensible to cower in fear at such a moment. However, Erik, as boss of the Acolytes was used to the hideout being demolished on a regular basis. It simply meant that the fourth member, Sabretooth was home.
It did not appear that Sabretooth had ever been educated about intercoms or security codes. Neither did he seem to know what the silver key hanging around his neck was for, for his preferred method of entry to the hideout was by either crashing through the wall on his bike or ripping the door off.
Sabretooth was what Erik thought of as rather impulsive. At least once a month the talonned one would take a deep breath, nostrils aquiver and jump on to his bike, disappearing for anything from a few nights to several months. Those who had been present at Sabretooth's moments of impulse heard him utter a name before leaving, always the same.
"Logan.."
Erik knew little of Sabretooth and the beclawed X-Man's history, but it became accepted between himself and Xavier that the pair intended to hunt each other down and fight to the death. Secretly, Erik thought it was all rather petty. It did become so tedious to have that Wolverine arrive at the hideout wearing that murderous smile. Not to mention the fact that he frequently had to have the doors repair due to nasty scratches.
Pulling on his crimson silk dressing gown, Erik stumbled sleepily into the main room. There, indeed, was Sabretooth, sporting a spectacular scar down the side of his face.
"Good morning, Sabretooth," Erik said cheerfully, moving over to the kettle to make himself a cup of coffee. He was beginning to master it now and had been told that the pitiful brown substance was starting to taste like actual coffee rather than thick mud.
The hairy mutant stared at his master, taken aback. Since when did Magneto say 'good morning'? When did master start making his own coffee? And why the hell did Ole Boss-Man not throw his usual tantrum at the sight of the latest breakage?
"There have been some changes of late," the boss smiled and to Sabretooth's horror, started to sing something that sounded suspiciously like a showtune.
"Did you have a nice trip?" Erik stopped singing and continued to scare the fourth Acolyte by taking what appeared to be interest in his sorry life.
"Hell yeah!" Sabretooth growled, scratching a long fingernail into the mahoghany table.
"How is Wolverine?"
Sabretooth blinked. His mouth fell open in shock, revealing two gleaming fangs and a missing front tooth. Magneto was enquiring about the health of an X-Man? Not just any X-Man, but that stupid, pointy-haired, claw-wielding twit of a mutant.
Or was he? The long haired mutant shook himself and realised that of course, the evil boss wanted an account of Wolverine's torture!
"Let's just say there won't be any Logan juniors." Sabretooth gave a menacing little grin. "Damn, he squealed like a girl, boss! I had 'im by the throat, right-" At this point, the mutant stood up to re-enact his battle.
"I got my knee, boss, like this- brought it up and BAM! Oh yeah, right in the-"
Far from being amused, Erik was actually rather horrified. Being a male, he sympathised with anyone who had been attacked in such a very sensitive area. In fact, he found himself wincing at Sabretooth's coarse re- enactment, particularly when the mutant raised his voice to a glass- shattering octave and burst into theatrical fits of sobbing.
"Yeah," Sabretooth puffed his chest out proudly. "It was just like that. And don't you worry boss, I beat 'im good, too. Even with those healing powers he'll be hurting for a few days. Just a shame I didn't finish him off, really, but maybe next time I'll bring an axe, and-"
As the mutant continued to spill his violent desires, Erik's thoughts turned to his four new and improved recruits. Surely there was something he could do to stop Sabretooth from being so.. aggressive. It was just a question of how to go about 'softening' the rival of Wolverine.
Before, the solutions had been more simple. Pietro needed his father, Colossus needed his home, Pyro needed a hobby and Gambit needed the company of someone other than his right hand. Sabretooth, on the other hand, appeared to need the X-Man's blood and in order to improve his recruit, Erik would have to rapidly change the mutant's desires.
"Hey, look," Sabretooth waved a talon in front of Erik's face, awakening him from his deep thought. "I still got some of his blood under my nail."
And, to Erik's disgust, he proceeded to run his tongue under the nail and sigh as if he had tasted the nectar of the gods.
*
It had been four days since the return of Sabretooth, and Erik still hadn't come up with a way to tone him down.
The situation was becoming more desperate. It looked like the hairy beast of a mutant might be preparing for another hunt, judging by the way he threatened an absent Wolverine under his breath. A while ago, Erik would have been thrilled that his recruit was so hungry for the blood of the X- Man, but since his transformation he had somewhere come to the conclusion that Killing Was Bad.
He feared he'd been a little late to the party on that one.
"Alright, Maggie?"
Erik looked up from the blank page on which he had meant to fill with scribbled plans to see a jovial Pyro, complete with trombone. He flinched inwardly at the self-proclaimed musician's new choice of nickname. 'Maggie' was really a touch too feminine for him.
"Hello, Maestro."
The Aussie glowed with pride at the boss' nickname for him.
"Have you seen old Kitty-Kat around, boss?"
Sometimes, it was hard to decipher all of Pyro's nicknames. Erik deduced that the mutant in question was Sabretooth; judging by his claws, furry coat and tendency to spray the furniture on a full moon.
Though he was loath to admit it, Erik often thought of Sabretooth as the Acolytes' pet.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, a bell rang. A pet! A kitty-kat! He could get the unruly Acolyte a pet of his own and Sabretooth might learn to love and cherish the creatures of the Earth. Then again, he might turn the poor thing into Shish Kebab, but it was a risk Erik was prepared to take.
Now decided, Erik leapt out of his chair and called for Pietro. The boy was there in a flash and he and Pyro were told the latest master plan.
Erik was a little deflated to find that they laughed. Alright, so the plan was a touch far-fetched. Did the speed demon or the trombonist have a better idea?
They shook their heads and the three of them left for the pet shop, just as Sabretooth was filing his nails into deadly points and cackling in a quite unmanly fashion.
*
Like it had been for Gambit's girlfriend, it was a very tough choice. They had stayed in the pet shop for three hours debating the 'uncuteness' of three kittens.
It was agreed that Sabretooth's kitten could not be too cute, too fluffy or too pretty. If it were any of these, then it would probably be an insult to the mutant's manhood.
Pyro had stuck very firmly to this brief and chosen a fat, male kitten with one eye and a squashed face. He felt rather sorry for it because it was so ugly and didn't see how Sabretooth would think that it was a 'pansy-cat'.
Pietro fought the case for a very sleek, white cat with blue eyes that he rather liked to think looked like a feline version of himself. World War Three had almost broken out when Pyro called the kitten in question a poofter and Pietro took the insult a little too personally.
Erik liked the look of a very small tabby. When he reached out a finger to stroke it, it had bitten his hand. A sure sign that the little furball and the considerably larger furball would get along, in his opinion.
Strangely, they had ended up purchasing Pyro's deformed creature. Nobody was really sure why, not even Pyro himself. The ugly beast shrieked all the way home, bashing its thick skull against its box in desperation to escape.
"Well, this can go either way," Erik warned as they entered the hideout through the unfixed door. Erik had tried in vain to magnetise it back on using his powers and it now hung rather feebly, occasionally wobbling ominously.
"Oi, Claws!" called Pyro on noticing Sabretooth's absence.
"Logan?" came a sadistic whisper in reply. The brutal mutant's face fell when he realised that no, his bait was not near. Damn. No blood tonight.
"What's in the box?" he asked sullenly, on a last hope that it might be Wolverine's entrails.
"A present. For you," his boss replied. He eyed the three of them suspiciously as they grinned like demented Cheshire Cats, waiting for him to look in the box.
As some psychoanalysts would have you believe, Sabretooth was really little more than a child at heart. And at the mention of a present, his heart secretly leapt. His hand reached out greedily for the box, just as his head reminded him that he was Big Bad Sabretooth and Big Bad Sabretooth didn't need anything from anyone.
Luckily, it was Little Curious Sabretooth who acted instead. He opened the box carefully in deathly silence. Erik could hardly bear to watch the mutant's reaction as he spotted the large ball of fur sitting at the bottom and Pietro actually closed his eyes to block out a possible kitten bludgeoning.
For a second, Sabretooth was confused. The 'present' looked like something he might cough up after a heavy night's grooming. He prodded it with a long, bony finger and when it moved, realised that whatever it was, it was alive.
It turned to look at him with one, mournful green eye. Somewhere in his heart, the hairy mutant felt a strange twinge. The thing mewed sadly and before he knew what he was doing, Sabretooth reached out a hand and stroked the creature.
After that, he quite forgot where he was and what he was supposed to act like and picked the kitten up. It was the ugliest, most adorable thing he'd ever seen.
Erik, Pietro and Pyro looked on in shock. The reaction was good, no, far better than they had ever imagined. It looked like Sabretooth was already falling in love with the hideous cat, his softer side shining through for all to see as he cradled the creature and cooed at it.
"What're you going to call it?" Pietro asked a few moments later, still completely taken aback by the gigantic change in the man.
"Nothin' too cute," Sabretooth replied. Pietro breathed a sigh of relief. At least the man still had some testosterone. "Maybe Dolly."
Or maybe he didn't.
Sabretooth didn't see Pyro shove a fist in his mouth to stop himself from laughing or hear Pietro say that the cat was, in fact, a boy and that Dolly was not a very suitable name. He was far too engrossed in his little Dolly- Wolly, not that that made him a pansy or anything.
He'd train her up to kill Logan! Death by kitten- it could happen. Then again, suppose she got hurt? No, he couldn't risk his precious Dolly's life like that. And come to think of it, he didn't really want to kill Logan. Killing was bad.
He shook himself, wondering if he had really just thought such a dreadful thing. Or was it dreadful? Wasn't it a good thing? Weren't kittens so sweet, and wasn't the world so lovely?
The hairy mutant was left alone in his revoltingly fluffy frame of mind, the gruesome little cat sleeping in the palm of his hand.
*
Just a week later, Sabretooth was completely unrecognisable. He had become a kind, considerate and sensitive soul who thought the world of his cat. There had been no utterings of the name Logan and no sudden disappearances since Dolly arrived. Erik congratulated himself for another reformed recruit, allowing himself extra room to gloat on hearing Sabretooth actually say the word 'pookie'- not that he'd ever admit it.
On Sunday morning, just as Erik was boiling the kettle, three familiar claws poked through the door. In a vain attempt to save the poor door, Erik opened it, making the owner of the claws very confused.
"Hello," Erik said brightly to the murderous Wolverine. "Have you come to see Dolly?"
"Dolly?" Wolverine's brows knotted together in further confusion. "That what he's calling himself these days?"
Then, in true Wolverine style, he barged past Erik with a flash of adamantium claw and proceeded to sniff out his prey.
He found Sabretooth in the hideout's one comfortable chair. He noticed something in the long talonned hand, but chose to ignore it. He wanted blood.
"Sabretooth," he growled, enjoying the threatening swishing sound as his claws came out.
There was no reply from the mutant in question, who was staring down at the thing in his hand with a very strange expression on his face. Not one to ignored, Wolverine cleared his throat loudly.
"Sabretooth," he growled again, in his best 'I'm-Going-To Kill-You-Just-Try- And- Stop-Me-Bub' voice.
"Oh," Sabretooth replied pleasantly. "Logan. Have you met Dolly?"
Predictably, Wolverine growled.
"Who the hell is Dolly?"
He was repulsed and terrified to find that a fond, loving kind of smile crossed his sworn enemy's face.
"Sssh," Sabretooth whispered. "She's sleeping."
He pointed to his outstretched hand, and Wolverine realised that it held a small, furry something. Possibly a kitten, but too ugly to tell.
"What the hell is wrong with you, Creed?"
"Isn't she adorable?"
The claws retracted, as Wolverine stared at his rival in disgust.
"Is this some kind of game, bub?"
Sabretooth gave another of his horrifyingly uncharacteristic smiles and to further shock his enemy, seemed to squeal. It was completely understandable that this memory disturbed Wolverine for a long time after.
"Oooh, a game! Dolly loves to play, don't you? Yes! Yes she does. Look, if you swish your finger around like this then she'll chase it and-"
With that, the years of hatred and blood thirst seemed to wash away in front of their eyes as the talonned one and the beclawed one bonded over a transsexual, one-eyed kitten.
It was only a few minutes later that fellow X-Man, Cyclops turned up with a heroic blast through the door to save the day only to find the fierce, hostile Wolverine sitting cross-legged on the floor of the Acolyte hideout and giggling as he tickled the stomach of his arch enemy's kitten.
Understandably, the bemused Cyclops left without another word.
Now, any other person may be slightly alarmed to hear such a noise. They might pick up a baseball bat or a rifle, or creep to the basement and call the police. It would be sensible to cower in fear at such a moment. However, Erik, as boss of the Acolytes was used to the hideout being demolished on a regular basis. It simply meant that the fourth member, Sabretooth was home.
It did not appear that Sabretooth had ever been educated about intercoms or security codes. Neither did he seem to know what the silver key hanging around his neck was for, for his preferred method of entry to the hideout was by either crashing through the wall on his bike or ripping the door off.
Sabretooth was what Erik thought of as rather impulsive. At least once a month the talonned one would take a deep breath, nostrils aquiver and jump on to his bike, disappearing for anything from a few nights to several months. Those who had been present at Sabretooth's moments of impulse heard him utter a name before leaving, always the same.
"Logan.."
Erik knew little of Sabretooth and the beclawed X-Man's history, but it became accepted between himself and Xavier that the pair intended to hunt each other down and fight to the death. Secretly, Erik thought it was all rather petty. It did become so tedious to have that Wolverine arrive at the hideout wearing that murderous smile. Not to mention the fact that he frequently had to have the doors repair due to nasty scratches.
Pulling on his crimson silk dressing gown, Erik stumbled sleepily into the main room. There, indeed, was Sabretooth, sporting a spectacular scar down the side of his face.
"Good morning, Sabretooth," Erik said cheerfully, moving over to the kettle to make himself a cup of coffee. He was beginning to master it now and had been told that the pitiful brown substance was starting to taste like actual coffee rather than thick mud.
The hairy mutant stared at his master, taken aback. Since when did Magneto say 'good morning'? When did master start making his own coffee? And why the hell did Ole Boss-Man not throw his usual tantrum at the sight of the latest breakage?
"There have been some changes of late," the boss smiled and to Sabretooth's horror, started to sing something that sounded suspiciously like a showtune.
"Did you have a nice trip?" Erik stopped singing and continued to scare the fourth Acolyte by taking what appeared to be interest in his sorry life.
"Hell yeah!" Sabretooth growled, scratching a long fingernail into the mahoghany table.
"How is Wolverine?"
Sabretooth blinked. His mouth fell open in shock, revealing two gleaming fangs and a missing front tooth. Magneto was enquiring about the health of an X-Man? Not just any X-Man, but that stupid, pointy-haired, claw-wielding twit of a mutant.
Or was he? The long haired mutant shook himself and realised that of course, the evil boss wanted an account of Wolverine's torture!
"Let's just say there won't be any Logan juniors." Sabretooth gave a menacing little grin. "Damn, he squealed like a girl, boss! I had 'im by the throat, right-" At this point, the mutant stood up to re-enact his battle.
"I got my knee, boss, like this- brought it up and BAM! Oh yeah, right in the-"
Far from being amused, Erik was actually rather horrified. Being a male, he sympathised with anyone who had been attacked in such a very sensitive area. In fact, he found himself wincing at Sabretooth's coarse re- enactment, particularly when the mutant raised his voice to a glass- shattering octave and burst into theatrical fits of sobbing.
"Yeah," Sabretooth puffed his chest out proudly. "It was just like that. And don't you worry boss, I beat 'im good, too. Even with those healing powers he'll be hurting for a few days. Just a shame I didn't finish him off, really, but maybe next time I'll bring an axe, and-"
As the mutant continued to spill his violent desires, Erik's thoughts turned to his four new and improved recruits. Surely there was something he could do to stop Sabretooth from being so.. aggressive. It was just a question of how to go about 'softening' the rival of Wolverine.
Before, the solutions had been more simple. Pietro needed his father, Colossus needed his home, Pyro needed a hobby and Gambit needed the company of someone other than his right hand. Sabretooth, on the other hand, appeared to need the X-Man's blood and in order to improve his recruit, Erik would have to rapidly change the mutant's desires.
"Hey, look," Sabretooth waved a talon in front of Erik's face, awakening him from his deep thought. "I still got some of his blood under my nail."
And, to Erik's disgust, he proceeded to run his tongue under the nail and sigh as if he had tasted the nectar of the gods.
*
It had been four days since the return of Sabretooth, and Erik still hadn't come up with a way to tone him down.
The situation was becoming more desperate. It looked like the hairy beast of a mutant might be preparing for another hunt, judging by the way he threatened an absent Wolverine under his breath. A while ago, Erik would have been thrilled that his recruit was so hungry for the blood of the X- Man, but since his transformation he had somewhere come to the conclusion that Killing Was Bad.
He feared he'd been a little late to the party on that one.
"Alright, Maggie?"
Erik looked up from the blank page on which he had meant to fill with scribbled plans to see a jovial Pyro, complete with trombone. He flinched inwardly at the self-proclaimed musician's new choice of nickname. 'Maggie' was really a touch too feminine for him.
"Hello, Maestro."
The Aussie glowed with pride at the boss' nickname for him.
"Have you seen old Kitty-Kat around, boss?"
Sometimes, it was hard to decipher all of Pyro's nicknames. Erik deduced that the mutant in question was Sabretooth; judging by his claws, furry coat and tendency to spray the furniture on a full moon.
Though he was loath to admit it, Erik often thought of Sabretooth as the Acolytes' pet.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, a bell rang. A pet! A kitty-kat! He could get the unruly Acolyte a pet of his own and Sabretooth might learn to love and cherish the creatures of the Earth. Then again, he might turn the poor thing into Shish Kebab, but it was a risk Erik was prepared to take.
Now decided, Erik leapt out of his chair and called for Pietro. The boy was there in a flash and he and Pyro were told the latest master plan.
Erik was a little deflated to find that they laughed. Alright, so the plan was a touch far-fetched. Did the speed demon or the trombonist have a better idea?
They shook their heads and the three of them left for the pet shop, just as Sabretooth was filing his nails into deadly points and cackling in a quite unmanly fashion.
*
Like it had been for Gambit's girlfriend, it was a very tough choice. They had stayed in the pet shop for three hours debating the 'uncuteness' of three kittens.
It was agreed that Sabretooth's kitten could not be too cute, too fluffy or too pretty. If it were any of these, then it would probably be an insult to the mutant's manhood.
Pyro had stuck very firmly to this brief and chosen a fat, male kitten with one eye and a squashed face. He felt rather sorry for it because it was so ugly and didn't see how Sabretooth would think that it was a 'pansy-cat'.
Pietro fought the case for a very sleek, white cat with blue eyes that he rather liked to think looked like a feline version of himself. World War Three had almost broken out when Pyro called the kitten in question a poofter and Pietro took the insult a little too personally.
Erik liked the look of a very small tabby. When he reached out a finger to stroke it, it had bitten his hand. A sure sign that the little furball and the considerably larger furball would get along, in his opinion.
Strangely, they had ended up purchasing Pyro's deformed creature. Nobody was really sure why, not even Pyro himself. The ugly beast shrieked all the way home, bashing its thick skull against its box in desperation to escape.
"Well, this can go either way," Erik warned as they entered the hideout through the unfixed door. Erik had tried in vain to magnetise it back on using his powers and it now hung rather feebly, occasionally wobbling ominously.
"Oi, Claws!" called Pyro on noticing Sabretooth's absence.
"Logan?" came a sadistic whisper in reply. The brutal mutant's face fell when he realised that no, his bait was not near. Damn. No blood tonight.
"What's in the box?" he asked sullenly, on a last hope that it might be Wolverine's entrails.
"A present. For you," his boss replied. He eyed the three of them suspiciously as they grinned like demented Cheshire Cats, waiting for him to look in the box.
As some psychoanalysts would have you believe, Sabretooth was really little more than a child at heart. And at the mention of a present, his heart secretly leapt. His hand reached out greedily for the box, just as his head reminded him that he was Big Bad Sabretooth and Big Bad Sabretooth didn't need anything from anyone.
Luckily, it was Little Curious Sabretooth who acted instead. He opened the box carefully in deathly silence. Erik could hardly bear to watch the mutant's reaction as he spotted the large ball of fur sitting at the bottom and Pietro actually closed his eyes to block out a possible kitten bludgeoning.
For a second, Sabretooth was confused. The 'present' looked like something he might cough up after a heavy night's grooming. He prodded it with a long, bony finger and when it moved, realised that whatever it was, it was alive.
It turned to look at him with one, mournful green eye. Somewhere in his heart, the hairy mutant felt a strange twinge. The thing mewed sadly and before he knew what he was doing, Sabretooth reached out a hand and stroked the creature.
After that, he quite forgot where he was and what he was supposed to act like and picked the kitten up. It was the ugliest, most adorable thing he'd ever seen.
Erik, Pietro and Pyro looked on in shock. The reaction was good, no, far better than they had ever imagined. It looked like Sabretooth was already falling in love with the hideous cat, his softer side shining through for all to see as he cradled the creature and cooed at it.
"What're you going to call it?" Pietro asked a few moments later, still completely taken aback by the gigantic change in the man.
"Nothin' too cute," Sabretooth replied. Pietro breathed a sigh of relief. At least the man still had some testosterone. "Maybe Dolly."
Or maybe he didn't.
Sabretooth didn't see Pyro shove a fist in his mouth to stop himself from laughing or hear Pietro say that the cat was, in fact, a boy and that Dolly was not a very suitable name. He was far too engrossed in his little Dolly- Wolly, not that that made him a pansy or anything.
He'd train her up to kill Logan! Death by kitten- it could happen. Then again, suppose she got hurt? No, he couldn't risk his precious Dolly's life like that. And come to think of it, he didn't really want to kill Logan. Killing was bad.
He shook himself, wondering if he had really just thought such a dreadful thing. Or was it dreadful? Wasn't it a good thing? Weren't kittens so sweet, and wasn't the world so lovely?
The hairy mutant was left alone in his revoltingly fluffy frame of mind, the gruesome little cat sleeping in the palm of his hand.
*
Just a week later, Sabretooth was completely unrecognisable. He had become a kind, considerate and sensitive soul who thought the world of his cat. There had been no utterings of the name Logan and no sudden disappearances since Dolly arrived. Erik congratulated himself for another reformed recruit, allowing himself extra room to gloat on hearing Sabretooth actually say the word 'pookie'- not that he'd ever admit it.
On Sunday morning, just as Erik was boiling the kettle, three familiar claws poked through the door. In a vain attempt to save the poor door, Erik opened it, making the owner of the claws very confused.
"Hello," Erik said brightly to the murderous Wolverine. "Have you come to see Dolly?"
"Dolly?" Wolverine's brows knotted together in further confusion. "That what he's calling himself these days?"
Then, in true Wolverine style, he barged past Erik with a flash of adamantium claw and proceeded to sniff out his prey.
He found Sabretooth in the hideout's one comfortable chair. He noticed something in the long talonned hand, but chose to ignore it. He wanted blood.
"Sabretooth," he growled, enjoying the threatening swishing sound as his claws came out.
There was no reply from the mutant in question, who was staring down at the thing in his hand with a very strange expression on his face. Not one to ignored, Wolverine cleared his throat loudly.
"Sabretooth," he growled again, in his best 'I'm-Going-To Kill-You-Just-Try- And- Stop-Me-Bub' voice.
"Oh," Sabretooth replied pleasantly. "Logan. Have you met Dolly?"
Predictably, Wolverine growled.
"Who the hell is Dolly?"
He was repulsed and terrified to find that a fond, loving kind of smile crossed his sworn enemy's face.
"Sssh," Sabretooth whispered. "She's sleeping."
He pointed to his outstretched hand, and Wolverine realised that it held a small, furry something. Possibly a kitten, but too ugly to tell.
"What the hell is wrong with you, Creed?"
"Isn't she adorable?"
The claws retracted, as Wolverine stared at his rival in disgust.
"Is this some kind of game, bub?"
Sabretooth gave another of his horrifyingly uncharacteristic smiles and to further shock his enemy, seemed to squeal. It was completely understandable that this memory disturbed Wolverine for a long time after.
"Oooh, a game! Dolly loves to play, don't you? Yes! Yes she does. Look, if you swish your finger around like this then she'll chase it and-"
With that, the years of hatred and blood thirst seemed to wash away in front of their eyes as the talonned one and the beclawed one bonded over a transsexual, one-eyed kitten.
It was only a few minutes later that fellow X-Man, Cyclops turned up with a heroic blast through the door to save the day only to find the fierce, hostile Wolverine sitting cross-legged on the floor of the Acolyte hideout and giggling as he tickled the stomach of his arch enemy's kitten.
Understandably, the bemused Cyclops left without another word.